From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 4 14:54:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:54:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] meanings Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: > Another example in Hallel: ze hayom `asa Hashem, nagila venismha > bo (is "bo" hayom or Hashem? Most translations seem to go for > "hayom", but "veyyismehu becha Yisrael" in the kedushat hayom > of 18 for regalim fits with "bo" meaning Hashem) Hirsch (Psalms 118:24) translates "vo" as "in Him", but Radak (same verse) explains that it means "on this day". Neither explicitly rejects the other view. However, the Midrash does explicitly ask if one is correct to the exclusion of the other, and it answers clearly (and rather emphatically, in my opinion): the correct translation is "in Him". This Medrash can be found in the Torah Temimah on Shir Hashirim 1, #66 (which is in the back of the Vayikra volume). Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 09:22:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:22:32 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] =?windows-1252?q?Are_genetically_modified_organisms_=28G?= =?windows-1252?q?MO=92s=29_kosher=3F?= Message-ID: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. Are genetically modified organisms (GMO?s) kosher? I have heard that they can splice the genes from one type of plant into another. For example, canola seeds can be modified with the genes from the California Bay tree. Does this affect the kosher status of these foods? A. The Torah (Vayikra 19:19) forbids mixing different species of plants (kilayim). The Mishnayos in Tractate Kilayim list specific activities which are included in the prohibition. Included in this list, is the prohibition of grafting a branch from one species of plant onto another. On a conceptual level, mixing genes from different species can be viewed as a similar violation. However, Rav Belsky, zt?l ruled that GMO?s are kosher. He explained that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Although Ramban (Bereishis 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every species to be created ?l?mineiyhu? (to its own kind), and one might conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless the actual prohibition is only violated if it is done in one of the ways specifically proscribed by Chazal. Furthermore, with the exception of klei ha?kerem (planting vegetables in a vineyard), even if plants are grown through a forbidden act of kilayim, the resulting fruit remain kosher. Click on the link below to hear Rav Belsky, zt?l discuss the issue of GMO?s. The topic begins at minute 30 until minute 38. https://www.ou.org/torah/kashrut/halacha/let_my_people_know_/?webSyncID=82216253-d9ba-b3a7-be91-b360cadc890a&sessionGUID=cb8dd055-9a23-2dc0-0914-28194d4901c1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 5 13:10:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 16:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Are genetically modified organisms (GMO's) kosher? In-Reply-To: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> References: <1467735737658.89874@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160705201021.GA28121@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 04:22:32PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : The following is from the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis ... :... However, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that GMO's are kosher. He explained : that the prohibition of kilayim only refers to the specific actions : that the Torah or Chazal forbade. Other forms of mixing species such as : splicing genes are permitted. As another example, one is permitted to : plant a fruit tree of one species next to a tree from another species, : even though the trees will cross-pollinate. Does this position on GMOs therefore qualify as hora'ah, or is it zil q'ri bei rav? : Although Ramban (Bereishis : 1:11) explains the reason for the issur of kelayim is that by mixing : species one is contradicting the command that Hashem gave for every : species to be created "l'mineiyhu" (to its own kind), and one might : conclude that it is forbidden to mix and create new species, nonetheless ... Wouldn't making a pesaq based on this Ramban be invalid because ein darshinan ta'amei hamiqra? IOW, is the "one" who "might conclude" a poseiq? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The greatest discovery of all time is that micha at aishdas.org a person can change their future http://www.aishdas.org by merely changing their attitude. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Oprah Winfrey From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 07:16:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 10:16:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Icy Korach Message-ID: <20160706141623.GA12009@aishdas.org> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? When the question hit me while taking off tefillin, the person across from me asked if "qerach" was even Biblical Hebrew. With my infamous spelling I shot back "asher qorkha baderekh" but that it with a khaf (qar + -kha). Hitting the BDB after the market opened, I see that after all the references to baldness, there is indeed Bereishis 31:40, "veqerach ballaylah" as the frost or cold of night in contrast to "chorev" - the heat of the day. There is also "qashlikh qarcho khefitim" (Tehilim 147:17), which is actually about ice. Also Iyov 6:16, 37:10, 38:29; and Yirmiyahu 36:30. In particular, Iyov's usages are very similar in niqud, being qamatz qatan, patach. In comparison to ben-Yitzhar's cholam patach. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, micha at aishdas.org if only because it offers us the opportunity of http://www.aishdas.org self-fulfilling prophecy. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Arthur C. Clarke From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 10:44:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 13:44:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Torah in Joy and Fear Message-ID: <20160706174448.GA16212@aishdas.org> AhS YD 246:27 cites Shabbos 30b that we does not sit to learn with a mindset of depression, laziness, silliness, qalus rosh, chattiness, or devarm betailim, rather from simchah shel mitzvah. And it asks from Rav, who says one should sit with eimah and yir'ah. And it answers ha berav, ha betalmid. So I guess that "llmd" is not "lilmod" but "lelameid" -- "ha berav". However, what about gilu bir'ada (Tehillim 2:11)? Why the assumption that simchah shel mitzvah contradicts be'eimah beyir'ah? RAEKaplan makes a stong argument that the very definition of yir'ah is that awareness of the magnitude of what your doing which makes something capable of generting simchah. See . >From RAEK's article , a loose translation (EMPHASIS added): Yir'ah is not anguish, not pain, not bitter anxiety. To what may yir'ah be likened? To the tremor of fear which a father feels when his beloved young son rides his shoulders as he dances with him and rejoices before him, taking care that he not fall off. Here there is joy that is incomparable, pleasure that is incomparable. And the fear tied up with them is pleasant too. It does not impede the freedom of dance... It passes through them like a spinal column that straightens and strengthens. And it envelops them like a modest frame that lends grace and pleasantness... It is clear to the father that his son is riding securely upon him and will not fall back, for he constantly remembers him, not for a moment does he forget him. His son's every movement, even the smallest, he feels, and he ensures that his son will not sway from his place, nor incline sideways - his heart is, therefore, sure, and he dances and rejoices. If a person is sure that the "bundle" of his life's meaning is safely held high by the shoulders of his awareness, he knows that this bundle will not fall backwards, he will not forget it for a moment, he will remember it constantly, with yir'ah he will safe keep it. If every moment he checks it - then his heart is confident, and he dances and rejoices... When THE TORAH WAS GIVEN TO ISRAEL SOLEMNITY AND JOY CAME DOWN BUNDLED TOGETHER. THEY ARE FUSED TOGETHER AND CANNOT BE SEPARATED. That is the secret of "gil be're'ada" (joy in trembling) mentioned in Tehillim. Dance and judgment, song and law became partners with each other... Indeed, this is the balance... A [beriach hatichon] of noble yir'ah passes through the rings of joy... [It is] the inner rod embedded deep in an individual's soul that connects end to end, it links complete joy in this world (eating, drinking and gift giving) to that which is beyond this world (remembering the [inevitable] day of death) to graft one upon the other so to produce eternal fruit. What would RAEK do with the gemara, which appears to say the do indeed conflict? And even without invoking RAEK, what does the gemara do with the pasuq, which shows that the two can coexist? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The same boiling water micha at aishdas.org that softens the potato, hardens the egg. http://www.aishdas.org It's not about the circumstance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but rather what you are made of. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 6 13:39:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Limits of Scientism Message-ID: <20160706203939.GA12500@aishdas.org> There is an interesting article in NewScientist.com about the limits of the kind of questions science can answer. A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea Jeffrey Guhin Imagine a future society in which everything is perfectly logical. What could go wrong? "Scientism" is the belief that all we need to solve the world's problems is - you guessed it - science. People sometimes use the phrase "rational thinking", but it amounts to the same thing. If only people would drop religion and all their other prejudices, we could use logic to fix everything. Last week, US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson offered up the perfect example of scientism when he proposed the country of Rationalia, in which "all policy shall be based on the weight of evidence". ... In fact, creationism has a lot more in common with scientism than people such as Tyson or Richard Dawkins would ever admit. Like Tyson, creationists begin with certain prior commitments ("evolution cannot be true", for example, substitutes for "science cannot be wrong") and build an impressively consistent argument upon them. Just about everyone is guilty of some form of [43]"motivated reasoning": we begin with certain priors, and then find a way to get the evidence to do what we want. Scientists can't tell us [44]if it's right to kill a baby with a developmental disability, despite how well they might marshal evidence about the baby's life prospects or her capacity to think or move on her own. There's no easy answer on how we ought to weigh those things up, just like there's no easy way to decide whether tradition is superior to efficiency or monogamy is better than lots of random sex. Scientism refuses to see this. The myopia of scientism, its naive utopianism and simplistic faith, bears an uncanny resemblance to the religious dogmatisms that people such as Tyson and Dawkins denounce. I have mentioned something similar here in the past, in discussions of brain vs heart death. Science can provide a lot of information about the various medical states a body can be in. But it cannot answer the question of which we are supposed to treat as alive weith all the moral rights and duties that implies. It can help us apply a dfinition in a sane way. But it cannot actually determine which dividing line is appropriate. We might find it intuitive today to associate death with the loss of the ability to ever again be conscious. Or with breain stem death. But if "dead" refers to an emotional attachment for the soul to the body, and mesorah tells us this happens at heart death, then the most medicine can do is help us determine heart death. Again, if that is the correct definition; I am not positing an answer, just showing that one possible (and common) answer is inherently outside of science. And so is the proper and moral way to run society. Last night's Aspaqlaria blog post also touches on the similarity between scientism and other fundamentalisms . The pagans worshiped deities to drive out the fear of the unknown. Blaming lightning on Thor does give the person hopes to control lightning by appeasing its god. But logically prior to that, blaming it on Thor takes it out of the realm of the unknown. And so the pagan associates the gods with things they don't understand and can't get a handle on. And thus the pagan stops seeing his gods in things they can explain philosophically or scientifically. This is the "God of the Gaps" -- the god who lives only in the gaps in human knowledge. And this mentality apparently motivates much of our internal science-and-Torah debates. On one side, we have people who feel that if we don't accept every miraculous claim of every medrash in its maximal and most extreme sense, we reduce G-d. They see G-d in the gaps, and therefore are maximizing G-d by insisting on the greatest possible gaps. On the other side, we have people with a near deist conception of G-d, where only that which cannot be explained in natural terms are left as miracles. His Wisdom is seen as being within nature, and miracles a concession. But they too are obsessing on G-d in relation to the gaps. In contrast, our rishonim found the need for miracle to be problematic. Why would a perfect G-d be unable to design a universe that could run without His further intervention? This is part of why the Seforno mentions in his introduction to parashas Chuqas and the Rambam (on Avos 5:6) place the design of miracles within the week of creation. They may be unique events, but they are placed within the original design. Science is evidence of a single unique G-d who implemented the universe with Divine Wisdom and a specific design. A pagan's world of events happening on the whim of warring gods could never produce science. Even the Greeks who started Natural Philosophy, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, rolling rejected their own gods as mythical or irrelevant, and discussed the world in terms of a single Creator. Belief in G-d is to explain questions of ought -- morality and ethics -- and of purpose. Religion only overlaps with science incidentally. With pride and confidence in science and technology, a real believer feels more in control by placing G-d within science. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 07:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? Message-ID: Beginning of the Holocaust (#172) by Rabbi Avigdor Miller Q: Why Did the Torah Permit Slavery? A: Now let?s understand that we?re living in a time when all the standards are measured by the fad of the day. Slavery is today considered as something to be abhorred, but you have to realize this wasn?t the case in ancient times among Jews. First of all, among gentiles in ancient times, what should a person do who had no livelihood? He had no land. Land was passed on from father to son. Suppose you had no land, you had no family, you were a stranger, what should you do? You would die of starvation. So Eliezer eved (servant of) Avraham who wanted to become a loyal disciple of his great teacher, what did he do? He gladly became an eved (slave). In those days to become a slave meant you joined the family in a certain status. Hagar gladly became a shifcha (slave-girl) to Sarah; it meant joining the family. She was a member of the family. In those ancient days, in cases where the woman, the ba?alas habayis (mistress of the house) was childless, she gave her handmaiden to her husband and he had children from her. That?s how it used to be way back before the Torah was given. Slavery had a different face in the ancient days. ?Among Jews slavery meant that a person became a member of the family. First of all a slave had to be circumcised. He had to go for tevilah (ritual immersion) and become a Jew in a certain sense. All slaves had to keep the Torah. A slave couldn?t be beaten, because he could have recourse to the dayanim (judges). And if a person was careless ? even when he had to chastise a slave, even if he was hitting him for a reason ? if he knocked out a tooth, or some other one of the twenty-four chief limbs, then the slave could march out a free man. If he killed a slave, the owner was put to death. Among Jews, slavery was an institution like the family. You can judge [the Torah?s slavery] from the following. Suppose a Jew bought a slave who refused to circumcise, so the Jew could say to him, I?ll sell you back to the gentiles. That was considered a threat. And in almost every case the slave was willing to circumcise. Slavery was an institution that fit into the social structure of Jewish life and the Jewish slave, even the eved Canaani (Caananite slave), to some extent, lived a privileged life and he was protected by the Torah. Therefore there is no question that slavery should have been sanctioned, as it was, by the Torah. www.LivingWithHashem.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 13:27:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:27:53 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty Message-ID: in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who says you're a levi. any more data? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 11:55:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:55:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gemara narrative In-Reply-To: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <23bc4e6f392f4404bbfbd7d994e281a8@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160708185533.GA5645@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:47:21PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : When you are learning gemara and you come to a give and take where : the hava amina seems strange (e.g. maakot 14a... the answer : is ein haci nami?! -- so why record the whole misattribution of reason, : and how did they know/not know) Building a parallel to Edios 1:4 and why the mishnah bothers recording divrei beis Shammai.... Perhaps the whole point is that people were making this mistake, maybe it hit the grapevine, and therefore ruling it out had to be made explicit and recorded. So that the strange hava amina never rears its head again unanswered. IOW, not that the gemara seriously entertained it, but the gemara wanted to codify its rejection. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 8 12:16:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 15:16:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] listening to governments and derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160708191602.GA9131@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 04:39:43PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : I don't know what point you were trying to make, but I'm wondering if you : considered the possibility that "lo bashamayim hee" might teach us that : their legislation IS His will, by definition. It is His Will that humans legislate, but a particular decision may not necessarily in accord with His Will. Just as it is possible to say that it is His Will that humans have our own free will, while still saying that the Nazi decision to slaughter us was not in accord with His Will. Even though the Desire to have free willed humans may have been part of what oughtweighed stopping them. Also, in discussions of hashgachah peratis... I don't think you would argue that denying universal HP is logically meaningless because a Divine Decision to abandon someone to miqreh or teva is itself a form of hashgachah. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger When a king dies, his power ends, micha at aishdas.org but when a prophet dies, his influence is just http://www.aishdas.org beginning. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Soren Kierkegaard From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 07:00:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 17:00:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach Message-ID: <> rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 10 08:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 18:27:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times Message-ID: According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk there. (BK 14 ...) Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a public street. As an example a horse (with a rider?) w)walks down a street in Manhattan and eats fruit/vegetables from an outdoors fruit stand. Is the owner required to pay? In todays society n would be difficult to say that it is the job of the vegetable owner to prevent animals from eating his fruits. The questiont is that this is a monetary question and so may be different from the usual questions of changes in issur ve-heter halachot because of changing times. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 09:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:41:26 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus Message-ID: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:36:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:36:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Is dirt clean? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711213621.GC31833@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 06:03:53AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My question is simple: Why is dirt in the category of "things which clean"? : It seems to me that if I would rub my hands with dirt they would (almost : always) be even dirtier afterwards than before. The early Greeks apparently used clay, sand, pumice and/or ashes to remove the oils and "to draw toxins out of the body". Then they washed it odd and annointed themselves with oil, often scented. (This annointing with oil is likely familiar from discussions in hilkhos Shabbos and tannis.) Galen had them shift to soap to ward off diseases of the skin. He lived around the same time as R Meir and Rashbi. Interestingly, the Tur mentions using a pebble or anything that cleans. The BY inserts "ve'afar", and repeats it in the SA. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:50:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:50:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is : on the cohanim alone? If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to skip it? A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? I also don't know if one can differentiate between mitzvos and the benefit of the cheftzah shel mitzvah. But I don't have anything to add to the "does a mezuzah protect beyond the sekhar of protection of the mitzvah of mezuzah?" thread beyond noting its potential relevance here. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 14:59:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:59:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711215952.GF31833@aishdas.org> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 09:05:23PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : In modern terms the Netivot says that all rabbanan decrees are gavra : and not cheftza. Eating meat and milk (cooked together) the mixture is : prohibited. Eating chicken and milk cooked together there is nothing : wrong with the mixture. It is rebelling against the chachamim to eat it : on purpose (lo tasur) or rabbinic if eaten le-teavon. I don't understand this last sentence. We are talking about grounding the duty to obey a derabbanan. If we say that in some circumstance that duty is itself derabbanan, haven't we reached circular reasoning? IOW, if there is no chiyuv de'oraisa to resist tei'avon to obey a derabbanan, then how could the chakhamim create the meta-chiyuv in a way that we would be duty-bound to obey? The meta-chuyuv too is versus to'eivah, not rebellion. Did RMA give part 2 of the shiur yet? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "The worst thing that can happen to a micha at aishdas.org person is to remain asleep and untamed." http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz > : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get > : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of > : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is > : on the cohanim alone? > > If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to > skip it? > > A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv > ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag? The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha, and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of yomtov. But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 11 15:14:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:14:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] icy korach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160711221430.GA9928@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 05:00:17PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> Did anyone see a meforash make a Qorach - qerach connection? : rather than ice it would be likely (?) that he was bald. Korcha is in the : torah Or, as a medrash suggests, his wife was outraged by his coming back the day he was consecrated as levi entirely shaved, head-to-toe. But the nice thing about medrash is, it needn't be mutually exclusive. Could be darshen-able both as bald and as ice-like. As I said, with everying done with qorkha and Amaleiq, there is what could be done hear. (Even if though shorashim differ.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries micha at aishdas.org are justified except: "Why am I so worried?" http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 02:40:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:40:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Rav Herschel Schachter gave a shiur last night in Raanana on electrical appliances on shabbat Enclosed is a short summary 1) Maharsham felt that all electricity on shabbat was derabban since it didn't exist in the mishkan. However, we normally pasken like R Chaom Ozer that if there is a metal filament that is heated then its use on shabbat is deoraisa. Interestingly we have no statement from RCOG to that effect. He brought that when RYBS visited Vilna several times R Chaim Ozer always made a point of making havdala on an electric bulb. Of course this works only if the bulb is not frosted. This was also the minhag in the Breuer shul in washington heights. Towards the end of his life R Breuer was blind. At some time they stopped using the bulb for havdala because it was frosted. They had a hard time explaining the blind R Breuer what a frosted bulb was. RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that could not be done manually. Similarly there is no problem walking normally even if it turns on some motion sensor. He stated that in New York there are video cameras everywhere and it is almost impossible to walk in public without it being recorded which would be ketiva derabbanan. As long as one doesnt intend to be recorded it is OK even though it is certain that it will occur. Of course it is better to avoid it if possible, R Nachum Rabinowitz explicitly allows this. Hence, one can ask a goy to turn on an electrical appliance (without an incadescent bulb) for a mitzva since it is shvut de-shvut bekom mitzva. However, he stressed that this can be done only occasionally not as a regular procedure. 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. RMF only allowed a shabbat clock for lights but not other devices because of oneg shabbat. RHS wasn't quite sure what the difference was between lights and say an air conditioner. In any case the common minhag is to use a shabbat clock for all electrical devices. For a dishwasher the problem is that it will run only when closed. So closing the door "starts" the process even though the shabbat clock will turn it on later. Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. R Henkin paskened that dina demalchuta applies to all laws made for safety or good of the public.This would include monetary rules like rent control and bankruptcy. 3) Chazon Ish allowed the use of umbrellas on shabbat since he felt that there was no problem of making an ohel since the umbrella is made to be opened. RMF disagreed, He didn't write a teshuva on the topic because he felt that it was obvious that CI was wrong! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:11:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:11:21 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> > 2) When shabbat clocks first were invented some poskim prohibited > them. They reasoned that Bet Hillel only allowed something that > started before shabbat and continued not something that would start on > shabbat. The coomon psak is to allow even beginning on shabbat. Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Joel rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 04:44:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:44:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Rich, Joel wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly states > that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat He mentioned it again and pointed out that once the consensus was to allow doing an act that begins on shabbat we don't change because of the discovery of some manuscript. Again, I provided a summary and did not include every remark -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 07:48:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 10:48:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> Message-ID: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly > states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat Kol tuv Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:12:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:12:07 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Birkas Kohanim and You Message-ID: <1468339914940.12645@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4925 Note the reference to followers of Shabtai Zvi below. Unsuccessful in Chu"l In Chutz La'aretz, although many Sefardic congregations do indeed Duchen every day[2], on the other hand, among Ashkenazic Kehillos, this unique service is relegated to Mussaf on Yom Tov as per the Rema's ruling (Orach Chaim 128, 44)[3]. It is well known that many Gedolim including the Vilna Gaon, the Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, the Netziv, and Rav Nosson Adler tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the minhag to perform Birkas Kohanim in Ashkenazic Kehillos on a daily basis[4]. The Aruch Hashulchan states that it is as if a Heavenly voice proclaimed not to do Birkas Kohanim on a daily basis outside of Eretz Yisrael and considers it a Decree from Above. In fact, the Beis Efraim[5] vigorously defends the common practice in Chutz La'aretz not to duchen daily, and maintains that it is an ancient custom as well, dating back to the Maharam m'Rottenberg, and is a minhag kavua that can not be changed. He cites many proofs to this and questions the validity of duchening daily, even in Eretz Yisrael. He adds an interesting note from Rav Yaakov Sasportas that one of the minhagim that the followers of the false messiah Shabtai Zvi practiced was to duchen daily. Come what may, not duchening in Chutz La'aretz on a daily basis has since become standard Ashkenazic practice. On the other hand, in most parts of Eretz Yisrael[6], and especially in Yerushalayim, we (Ashkenazim included!) are fortunate to be able to receive this unique bracha every day, and on Shabbos and Yom Tov (and on fast days!) even more than once. See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:40:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:40:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57850356.8020506@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: > On 07/12/2016 07:11 AM, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: >> Usually he mentions the position of the shut harambam which clearly >> states that it is prohibited to set in motion prior to Shabbat > Which teshuvah is this and where can I find it? My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) [transliteration mine -micha] KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:57:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> Message-ID: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 11:40 AM, Rich, Joel wrote: > My bad - it's actually a ktav yad: > ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') > Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 08:59:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <57851368.4030006@sero.name> References: <3D865662-E76D-48B9-9317-473AD0679D66@sibson.com> <57850356.8020506@sero.name> <57851368.4030006@sero.name> Message-ID: <84b1f4980bca49ef99457558fc5897f6@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> >> it's actually a ktav yad: ????? ????"? ????? ??? (???? ??- ??? ??? ?') >> Peirush haRambam leMeseches Shabbos (Kesav Yad, sof pereq 1) > If this is a reference to the Kafih edition of Perush Hamishnayos, > I can't find where he says this. (And if there's a substantive > difference between his translation and ibn Tibbon's I'd have expected > to see a footnote about it, but I didn't find one.) This is all I have on it as quoted from Rav Schachter - Perhaps someone can ask him for more detail KT Joel Rich From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 09:50:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 12:50:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 10:15:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:15:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:50:12PM -0400, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" (split among at least three adjacent subject lines) at or http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=I#IF%20YOU%20HAVE%20AN%20ELECTRONIC%20WATER%20METER%20CAN%20YOU It was launched in July 2012, by one R' Marty Bluke. RHS's position was not included, as far as I can tell. But we got quite a distance on pesiq reishei delo nicha lei and delo echpas lei. The consensus was "lo nicha lei" (IMHO) as we would prefer not being billed, just as we wouldn't stop using the water if the meter were broken and couldn't bill us. So then it's a question of pesiq reishei delo nicha lei on a derabbanan, a machloqes between the Trumas haDeshen and the MA (314:1). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:27:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 22:27:45 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 11:59:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 21:59:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan Message-ID: <> R Avraham's main thesis is that whenever we are stumped by a dichotomy the only way out is to find some middle ground. In our case there are two ways of learning from a pasukh 1) the case of interest is a detail of the pasuk (hitpartot) in which case it is a deoraisa 2) asmachta which makes it a derabbanan Basically, Micha's question is that whichever we choose for "lo tasur" we are in trouble. RMA's answer is that there is a third possibility what he calls his-taa-fut - branching out. This is something that comes from the pasuk but indirectly. He gives the example of a neder. The Torah says one must keep a neder. However, it is the human that decides exactly what the neder says. This third possibility is in between the first possibilities. This "branch" comes from the pasuk "to tasur" but creates a derabban and not a deoraisa. Someone who violates a derabbanan has not violated a torah prohibition. RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves this covers about 100 pages out of 500 in his book!! -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 12:56:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57854B51.2090000@sero.name> On 07/12/2016 04:27 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: >> in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand >> guard duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. > I thought that they did their shmirah outside of the Temple Mount. No, outside the Mount what is there to guard? The first mishnos of Tamid and Middos say that "Kohanim guard in three places, and Leviyim in twenty-one", and all those places are on the Mount. > Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or > secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The guards are not supposed to tell anyone anything. They're supposed to stand there, just like those men with the funny hats outside Buck House. (Though not with such tough discipline; the gemara makes it clear that they're allowed to sit, and to talk to each other.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:35:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:35:55 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia Message-ID: http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah/?attribution=our-picks-2-title the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha , nor other seforim even if the Shem is in them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 13:41:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:41:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat Message-ID: Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina demalchuta. ---overriding what switch is this referring to? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:07:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:07:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kedusha of non-O paraphenalia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210718.GB4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 01:35:55PM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://forward.com/news/344480/watch-ultra-orthodox-rip-up-prayer-book-to-protest-western-wall-bat-mitzvah : : the commentors here have a fairly viscious back and forth. but regardless : of the propriety of ripping up the WoW's books from a social standpoint , : isn't it clear halachically that the prayer books have no kedusha ... What are they? Modified sedurim, or traditional sedurim WoW happen to own? If an apiqoreis writes a seifer Torah, it has no qedushah. But if an apiqoreis buys a kosher seifer Torah, does it lose its qedushah? And what if it's not an apiqoreis, but a tinoq shenishba (many of the WoW are not from O homes) or a mumar letei'avon (honestly mislefd by a desire for egalitarianism)? Or even a mumar lehach'is, but on a din derabbanan? Even granted that WoW are sinning (and I fear I will get flack from some long-time members for assuming as much) not every sin is heresy. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:00:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 17:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160712210047.GA4887@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:27:45PM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : Plus, who exactly are they going to tell not go up? The goyim or : secular? The Dati Jews who do go prepare themselves? The beefeaters in full dress outside Buckingham Palace are not really the ones keeping the royal family safe. Their guard duty is part of the honor one shows royalty. The Mechilta, the Rambam (Beis haBachirach 8:1), the Chinukh and others explain shemiras hamiqdash (Rambam asei #22, lav #67) similarly. Quoting Seifar haMitzvos quoting the Mechilta, "ve'ino domeh palterin sheyeish alav shomerim, lepalterei she'ein alav shomeim". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Brains to the lazy micha at aishdas.org are like a torch to the blind -- http://www.aishdas.org a useless burden. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Bechinas haOlam From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 14:26:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 00:26:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 11:41 PM, saul newman via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina > demalchuta. > > ---overriding what switch is this referring to? > Presumably the switch that makes the dishwasher cut off when the door is opened. But I find this surprising: I understand such a law applying to people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 19:53:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:53:21 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they needed? Ben On 7/8/2016 10:27 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > in my notes i found 2 reasons why leviim don't currently stand guard > duty at Har Habayit. one, jews don't control the area. two, maybe that > family of leviim wasn't assigned to that job. i suppose three, who > says you're a levi. any more data? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 00:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 10:22:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam Message-ID: I understood from RHS that there was a manuscript of the Rambam on the first perek of shabbat found by Professor Asaf Unfortunately I haven't found any reference to it (yet) on the internet. as an aside there is now available a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah (and other early manuscripts) see http://www.seforimonline.org/new-rare-manuscripts-of-the-tanach-and-of-the-rambam-added-to-the-database/ This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the*Mishneh Torah*, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. some other manuscripts of the Rambam appear in http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/maimonides-exhibition.html for a discussion of various manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah see also http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/blog/post_cdo/AID/708481/PostID/24373/iid/1 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 12 23:59:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 09:59:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> References: <20160712171524.GA19214@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote to Rav Schachter and got the following reply if you have an electronic water meter I would assume that you would have a problem of Kosev because by causing the water to go through the faucet, you cause a record to be kept of how much water was used and that is a melocha of kosev. Perhaps it is a psik raisha d'lo nicha lei we would have to investigate further what the nature of the system is. ------------------------------------- : Did he discuss the status of electronic water meters on shabbos? This is a : hot topic in Israel because they are being installed all over. You might wish to look at the thread "If you have an electronic water meter, can you turn on your faucet on Shabbos?" [Email #2 -micha] >> Overriding the switch is against American law and so prohibited by dina >> demalchuta. > overriding what switch is this referring to? American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents water from exiting while the machine is operating. A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and dina demalchusa. From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock. RHS feels that intrinsically running the washing machine on shabbat via a shabbos clock is allowed however closing the door on shabbat to allow the shabbos clock to work is problematic [Email #3 -micha] > I understand such a law applying to > people *selling* dishwashers, but is it really illegal to modify an > appliance which is your property and you use in your own home? I am not a lawyer and can't answer the legal question. However I did find http://www.shopyourway.com/questions/1219029 The short answer is you can not bypass the door to run the dishwasher open. This model does not use door switches it uses a sensor and even if the sensor is bypassed the control will read this as an error. You will not be able to bypass the door sensor to run the unit with the door open. thus in newer models it is not possible to run the dishwasher with the door open by disabling some switch. Thus, RHS is back to his premise without the need for legalistics -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 13 06:19:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 13:19:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <1468415962260.30012@stevens.edu> Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. The Torah (Bamidbar 31:23) commands us that utensils made of six metals which were acquired from a Gentile must be toiveled (immersed in a mikvah) before they may be used with food. The six metals are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Glass utensils must be toiveled as well, based on a rabbinic requirement. (Other materials will be discussed in a further Halacha Yomis.) If one purchased used utensils, they must first be kashered before the tevilah. However, if one borrows or rents utensils from a Gentile, there is no mitzvah of tevilas keilim. Before immersing, the utensils must be completely clean. All labels and even residual glue from the labels must be removed prior to tevilah. Prior to tevilah, a beracha is recited. If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 15 09:46:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:46:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma Message-ID: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Obviously, there is no known reason for the para aduma. A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox continues. For what it?s worth, I?ve always given the example of X-Rays. Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for to cure. ri From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 04:06:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06:08 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lions Message-ID: As lions appeared in this past weeks parsha and haftara (in Israel) there was an article on lions in one of the shabbat newsletters As noted lions appear frequently in Tanach as symbols of power. Aryeh and other names for lions appear 11 times beginning with the blessing of Jacob and the bracha of Moshe in addition to Bilaam. Shimshom fights lions as does David while in Melachim a man of G-d is eaten by a lion. The geamara iin chagiga states that the lion is king of the animals, the ox is king of the domesticated beasts and the nesher (eagle?) is king of the birds. However real life is very different. The lion eats mainly carcasses that dies naturally or was killed by another animal for more than 50% of their food. They follow vultures to find the carcasses. The rest of the food is captured by the lioness. In each territory there is a pack a pack of lionesses accompanied by 1-2 males. The males stay with the pack until they are chased away by the next generation. Young male cubs are also chased away or killed, OTOH the lion is the biggest of the cat family except for the Siberian tiger which is not found in ancient Israel. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 17 21:22:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:22:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <38e797.59a9d7c1.44bdb375@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" Q. What is the mitzvah of tevilas keilim (immersing utensils in a mikvah)? A. ....... If a mikvah is not available, Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. >>>> Can someone explain what is the problem with rain? Thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 04:24:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Mashbaum via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:24:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions Message-ID: RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. I understand that while this is true, the male lion has a very important role in the family or group (pride). The male lions in the group protect its territory from hostile elements (often other lions). The lion 'couple' divides up responsibilites such that the female is the (main) hunter, and the male is the fighter. Indeed there may be much more hunting than fighing that goes on, but this seems to the lions to be an equitable arrangement. So it is the lion the fighter, not the lion the hunter, which is the symbol of courage, and this aspect makes the lion the 'king of the beasts'. Saul Mashbaum From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 01:08:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] manuscript of the Rambam In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <654d6c27ce4447ac96b83d9b0d25e2b4@Ex1.Nli.loc> Mishneh Torah manuscripts. Firstly most of the authoritative manuscript versions of Mishneh Torah, available for those without experience in reading manuscripts in Rav Shilat's series: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003862884 And in side by side with the common printed edition, here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002392254 Soon the Academy of Hebrew language will be uploading their transcripts copies of the authoritative manuscripts to their site Maagarim: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/ "Authoritative" means a copy authorized by the author, many of which were available and cited in Kesef Mishneh, Migal 'Oz and other sources. Some of these manuscripts (or relatives) are available in microfilm or online. In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you can put your Frankel in genizah). It's online here: http://maimonides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/viewer/ Nashim, the authoritative copy, the only text witness that reflects the final version (about this see here: http://imhm.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/blog-post_28.html ) is Oxford 594 info here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089732 the viewer is temporarily down. In Hafla'ah there's Oxford 596, see the link to the online access at the bottom of this info page : http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089734 So too Zra'im Oxford 598 here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089736 ;'Avodah-Qorbanot Oxford 602. Here: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089740 Taharah in BL 496: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000121170 Qinyan : Oxford 611 http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089753 Mishpatim: Escorial G III 2: (temporarily limited access) http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000123697 Shoftim: Oxford 613: http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000089755 Dr. Ezra Chwat Department of Manuscripts The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem Edmond J. Safra Campus,?Givat Ram, P.O. Box 39105, Jerusalem 9139002 ezra.chwat at nli.org.il | www.nli.org.il From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Jul 18 08:53:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma In-Reply-To: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> References: <425096A7-E28C-4B1D-8D41-573C66553220@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160718155346.GB22923@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox : continues. : For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays. : Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for : to cure. Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject. See pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread, but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need. His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me. When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants, you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable. However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight the obsession. Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence: Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling funds from the business. When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this allegation for the first time when you say it. The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic. The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough ashes to be able to sprinkle them. Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten micha at aishdas.org your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip, http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 01:15:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ilana Elzufon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:15:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Lions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Saul Mashbaum via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > RET notes that the lioness does most of the hunting for the lion family. Rav Dr Natan Slifkin has pointed out that this depends on the lions' habitat. In the savannah, female lions do most of the hunting. (If I recall correctly, because the open area is more conducive to hunting as a group.) In more forested areas (like ancient Eretz Yisrael), male lions do more of the hunting, using an ambush technique that works better with the thick cover of a forest than in relatively open savannah. Thus various references in Tanach to hunting by male lions. This is in his Encyclopedia and somewhere on his blog, but I don't have time to look for it. Ilana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:02:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:02:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine quoted from the "OU Kosher Halacha Yomis": > Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may immerse the utensils in a lake, provided that it has not rained in the last few days. I was hoping that if I went to the source, there would be additional information and/or sources. But there's not. You can find this yourself by going to https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/ and entering "lake" or "rained" in the Search box there. Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) advTHANKSance! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 03:32:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 06:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160719103234.GA28576@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 06:02:59AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a : mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* : thing for a mikveh. A lake isn't a miqvah, it's a be'eir mayim chayim. Or would be, if you weren't using rainwater. A miqvah cannot have flowing water. Therefore, if a lake has an outlet and identifiable rain water, it would neither be a miqvah nor a be'eir. (Just guessing.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I long to accomplish a great and noble task, micha at aishdas.org but it is my chief duty to accomplish small http://www.aishdas.org tasks as if they were great and noble. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Helen Keller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 19 06:28:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:28:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim Message-ID: <1468934896785.89561@stevens.edu> >From the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Q. Do aluminum foil and disposable aluminum pans require tevilas keilim (immersion in a mikvah) before they can be used? A. Although we have seen that, in general, utensils made from aluminum do require tevilas keilim (albeit only as a rabbinic requirement) many poskim hold that there is no requirement for disposable utensils such as aluminum foil and aluminum pans. Minchas Yitzchak (5:32) writes that disposable utensils do not require tevilah. Even though ordinary utensils cannot be used even once without toiveling, a utensil that can only be used once is not considered a utensil at all and is therefore exempt. Igros Moshe (Yoreh De'ah 3:23) goes even further, and says that even if the pan can be reused another one or two times before having to be thrown away, it is still viewed as being disposable and does not require tevilah. Nevertheless, some have the custom to toivel aluminum pans. Everyone should follow their custom. There is no basis in Halacha for the common misconception that non-disposable utensils may be used once without immersion in a mikvah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 04:52:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:52:26 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 07:19:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:19:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: I quote the following (excerpted) from Oxford Jewish Thought - Essays by RabbiEli Brackman - Maimonides in Oxford: A commentary on the Oxford Manuscript of the Mishne Torah " A known fact regarding Maimonides? legal code of Mishneh Torah is the fact that it does not contain sources. Indeed, Maimonides received criticism for this and he desired to rewrite the work with all the sources but was unable to fulfil this ambition due to time constraints.? ibidem: ",,,as he does not usually quote sources for the decisions in his legal code.? I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his decisions, etc. The other quote regarding prophets: ". In Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah (10:4), it discusses a difference between the substantiation of a prophet based on positive prophecy and negative predictions. The failure of the latter does not define him as a false prophet, while the failure of the former to materialise does define him as a false prophet. The reason is because a negative prophecy can be annulled due to the fact that G-d is ?slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and forgiving of evil. Thus, it is possible that they will repent and their sin will be forgiven, as in the case of the people of Nineveh, or that retribution will be held in abeyance, as in the case of Hezekiah.? However a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet." What I question is that according to the teaching if a prophet predicts a negative prophecy and it doesn?t come true, it can be annulled due to a compassionate God. On the other hand, Rambam states a positive prophecy cannot be annulled and thus its failure to materialize can be a cause for him to be condemned a false prophet. So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:05:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720170524.GB6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 10:19:15AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus : annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn't the converse be possible -- : namely, God condemning those : who had been good and then turned to sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Realize that the main function of nevu'ah is mussar, not forecasting. A Compassionate G-d could choose to warn people that if they stay on some course, they are headed for calamity. And so, as soon as they veer from that course, the calamity doesn't materialize. But G-d doesn't hold out promises of good fortune before they are certain. It serves no moral purpose, and is just cruel. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 09:58:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 12:58:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 02:52:26PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted learning incorrect : pshat can never be recovered. : The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning Torah but reaches : an incorrect conclusion that it is not considered learning Torah Beshogeig. Perhaps also implied by the invocation of eilu va'eilu to explain why learning shitas Beis Shammai is talmud Torah. If you were doing TT even when learning a wrong shitah, why would it be so important to point out that it's still divrei E-lokim Chaim, if not halakhah? But it is possible that Tosafos just meant that compared to learning correct peshat, learning a mistake is an inferior use of time. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are. micha at aishdas.org - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5 http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 10:09:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 20:09:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > I assume tosafot meant wrong pshat not just a shitah not accepted in final > halacha The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 08:09:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : The only point I was making was that according to tosafot earnest trying by : an am haaretz is not learning Torah Would you find it notable if I were to claim that an am haaretz sits down in front of a Book of Mormon thinking it's kisvei qodesh, and earnestly studies it, he is not fulfilling the mitzvah of talmud Torah? That's different than an am haaretz who actually sits in front of an actual sefer, studies it, and ends up with the wrong peshat. In this case, he is studying Torah, but failing to learn it. Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person lives with himself for seventy years, micha at aishdas.org and after it is all over, he still does not http://www.aishdas.org know himself. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:45:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:45:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Prophecy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <578FC6D6.6050709@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his > decisions, etc. He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. > So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus > annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible > ? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to > sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? Because He gave us this test. He said if a navi says something will happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He should change His mind". However we know that He *does* change His mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as one "Who *changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. (You missed this because the translator of the book you are reading missed it too; to correctly translate something one must first understand it, and he didn't.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 12:01:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 15:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: <9dcb.4e2465cb.44c1246e@aol.com> In a message dated 7/20/2016, avodah at lists.aishdas.org writes: Here's my question: Why would recent rain disqualify a mikveh? Given that a mikveh is a collection of rainwater, I would imagine that rain is a *good* thing for a mikveh. (My apologies if this is a very basic halacha. Mikveh is one of the many areas that I know very little about.) Akiva Miller >>>>> That is exactly my question. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 11:55:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:55:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> References: <20160720165827.GA6497@aishdas.org> <20160720184834.GE6497@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <578FC939.9090807@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 02:48 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Tosafos is talking about a case where the student is being presented > false ideas by an incompitent melamed. Isn't that more similar to my > first scenario than my second -- albeit much less extreme quantitatively? Exactly. He is not talking about learning one of the shiv'im panim latorah that isn't currently the accepted halacha, he's talking about learning a mistranslation of chumash. "Es zechar `Amalek" is not Torah at all, and one gets no reward for learning it even if one sincerely thought it was Torah. As my father puts it, the Torah also has "shiv'im achor", and this is one of them. And when one has been taught such a false translation of chumash one can't progress in Torah, because one is starting from a false foundation and it never even occurs to one to question it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 14:53:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:53:24 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis Message-ID: does a river work for tevilas keilim? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 18:53:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Wed, 20 Jul 2016 Zev Sero, in reposne to wrote: > To: , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Prophecy Message-ID: > <578FC6D6.6050709 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; > format=flowed On 07/20/2016 10:19 AM, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: >> >I find it odd that a gadol like Rambam would omit sources to back his >> >decisions, etc. > He saw no need for it. His goal was to write one simple, easy-to-read > work that anybody with sufficient intelligence could study and know the > whole Torah, without having to plow through the mishneh and gemara. > He had done all the work for the reader, and all the reader had to do was > trust him. If you didn't trust him then why were you bothering to read > it in the first place? It didn't occur to him at that point that he would > have to deal with challenges from other rabbis. The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, addressed this issue explicitly, citing Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi as his role model, and the Mishna itself as declaring it *improper,* in a halachic guidebook, to assign names to finalized halacha (as R' Zev explained). In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly. As to what you said about the naming the sages?I actually did list the many names of the sages, Tannaim and Amoraim, at the beginning of the work. But in any case...Geonim and other greats who have already preceded me, have composed works and decided halachos in individual areas both in Hebrew and Arabic [without attaching names to the halachos].... And you should also be aware that I clearly stated, at the beginning of my work, that I decided to utilize the form of presentation and the language-style of the Mishnah. ....* I have merely embraced the approach of Rabbeynu Hakadosh.* He too had done this, prior to me. For every decision that he presented without attaching an author's name originated [not with him, but] with other sages. And those other sages as well were not the originators of those decisions, but [merely stated how they understood what they] obtained from the mouths of others, and the others from still others, back to Moshe Rabbeynu. And just as the Tannaim and Amoraim did not bother with endlessly attaching the names of all the sages from the days of Moshe Rabbeynu to their own, so too we have not been particular about whether we mention their names or not. What would be the purpose of that? Have they not explicitly stated in so many places, ?Rebbi endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue A, and presented them anonymously; but he endorsed the words of So-and-so regarding issue B, and presented them anonymously"? This openly states that whatever Rebbi endorsed as final halacha, and considered the proper practice to follow, he stated without associating anyone?s name with it! And in so many places the Gemora says, ?This anonymously-stated halachah is an individual?s opinion [and not the majority?s]??Rabbeynu did not mentioned the names of any of them [--neither that of the individual whom the halacha followed, nor that of the majority]. *[Only] when it came to matters that Rebbi did not consider settled, but still debatable, and about which he did not lean one way or the other,* did he state both opinions in the names of their proponents (?R. So-and-so says this, and R. So-and-so says that?) mentioning the names of those sages, or of recently living ones, from whom he heard those opinions--but [still] not of their mentors or mentors?-mentors' names. For at the time, many people still followed one opinion, and many still followed the opposing one. Suffice it to say that he [himself] told us explicitly why, in some of the mishnas, he attached names: And why do we mention the words of Shammai and Hillel only to negate them [by adding that the majority of sages disagreed with both and decided differently]??to teach the following generations [that a person should not stand on his words, for the avos of the world did not stand on their words]. And why do we mention the dissenting words of individuals along with those of the majority...???So that if a Beis Din will agree with the individual?s opinion and rely upon it....[R' Yehuda (ben El'ai) added:] And why do we mention the words of the individual together with those of the majority only to negate them??So that if a person reports receiving a teaching other than that which was accepted by the majority....? See how explicit it is!?that it is /*improper*/ to mention anything but the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law according to one sage?s opinion, and some according to another sage?s opinion. And since I composed my work following the Mishna?s style, and the Talmud already indicated the final halacha in each case either expressly or implicitly through the general rules of p?sak, so that two valid practices no longer exist, why should I mention the name of someone whom the halacha does not follow, or even the name of the one whom the halacha does follow? That halacha is not just a made-up idea expressed by the individual mentioned in the Mishna, such as Abbaya or Rava, but [an interpretation of] the words of legions from the mouths of legions. And for this reason I chose not to facilitate the rebellion of the /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the devised opinions of individuals. No, it is [a matter of what was obtained by] thousands and tens of thousands from the mouths of thousands and tens of thousands! It was in this vein that at the beginning of my work I said, ?So-and-so and his Beis Din obtained [the oral laws] from So-and-so and his Bes Din"?to make it known that the transmission was from a large number of people to a large number of people, and not from an individual to an individual. For this reason my plan and purpose was to state each halacha without any names attached, to indicate that it is the unanimous law, and to shun accommodating the wreckage committed by the /Minnim/ of today who deny the entire Oral Law on the basis of seeing ideas stated in the name of this or that authority, and who then imagine that he was the only one who said it, and that it was his own contrivance. >> >So if God will forgive those who have committed various sins thus >> >annulling a negative prophecy, why couldn?t the converse be possible >> >? namely, God condemning those who had been good and then turned to >> >sin, thus annulling positive prophecy? > Because He gave us this test. I.e. otherwise, the Rambam writes, there would be no way to determine whether one is a prophet whose commandments must be followed. > He said if a navi says something will > happen and it doesn't, "That is a thing that Hashem didn't say, the > navi said it wickedly, do not fear him". And, through Bil`am, He > said "God is not a man that He should disappoint, or a human that He > should change His mind". However we know that He*does* change His > mind about bad decrees, both because we have numerous examples of Him > doing just that, and because two authentic nevi'im described Him as > one "Who*changes His mind* about bad things". Therefore His claim > that He doesn't must apply only to good prophecies. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Jul 20 20:56:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tevilas Keilim from OU kosher halacha yomis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57904809.4020701@sero.name> On 07/20/2016 05:53 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > does a river work for tevilas keilim? It depends what kind of river it is. If it's fed by springs then it's kosher, but if it's fed by rainwater or snow melt then it isn't. Or it might be seasonal; kosher when it's made up of spring water, but passul when it's swollen by rainwater and snow melt. In the gemara there's a machlokes Rav and Shmuel about the Euphrates; Rav says it can't be used in the spring when it's swollen with rainwater but only when it's down to a low ebb, Shmuel says it can be used all year round. Then there's a machlokes rishonim as to whom we follow; Rabbenu Chananel and the Rif say we follow Rav, Rabbenu Tam says we follow Shmuel. The Rama says that bish'as had'chak one can rely on Rabbenu Tam so long as the river doesn't dry up in the summer. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 00:19:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:19:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: Just to be clearer I will give more details of the gemara BM 109a-b The gemara lists several professions that one can fire the employee immediately (see however CM 306:8) because the damage they do is irreparable. One of them is a teacher to children . Rashi explains that what one learns in one's youth can never be completely unlearned. Tosafot disagrees and instead explains that at the time the student is learning wrong material (shibushim) the student is not learning true Torah (limud shel emet). To quote Artscroll "the time learning the wrong information is lost forever" My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least for children the important thing is information. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:01:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The gemara BM 109 says that a torah teacher can be fired > without warning if he makes mistakes because it cannot be > corrected. Tosafot (top of 109b) explain that the time wasted > learning incorrect pshat can never be recovered. > > The inference from Tosafot is that if one labors learning > Torah but reaches an incorrect conclusion that it is not > considered learning Torah There must be some sort of mistake here. Maybe Tosfos is being misunderstood, or maybe "we" don't hold like this Tosfos. What I *AM* sure of is that at the great majority of siyumim that I've attended, we explain the phrase "anu m'kablim s'char" to mean that we in fact DO accomplish Talmud Torah even when we come up with a mistaken understanding. Sincere effort is the only requirement. in a second post, RET wrote: > The only point I was making was that according to tosafot > earnest trying by an am haaretz is not learning Torah What has being an am haaretz got to do with anything here? Are you suggesting that according to Tosafot, earnest trying by a talmid chacham *is* learning Torah, even if wrong? Why? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:10:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 06:10:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57909F91.3020202@sero.name> On 07/21/2016 03:19 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > My only point was that Tosafot does not account for the effort of the > student, i.e. working hard at learning the wrong material thinking he > is learning Torah. Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. I think you're missing the central point, which is what does a makre dardeke teach? Pesukim, nothing more. He's not even explaining them, he's just teaching the text. If he teaches a pasuk that doesn't exist how could it possibly be Torah? How is "es zechar Amalek" more Torah than "Mary had a little lamb"? Of what value is a student's effort at memorising either one, even if, as Tosfos says, the error will eventually be unlearned? This can't be compared to teaching incorrect pshat in mishna or gemara, where the pshat he teaches may be one of the 70 panim, and in any case the student is learning the mishna and thinking about it, which is Torah, and will eventually arrive at the correct pshat, a process which is also Torah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 03:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash Message-ID: How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing http://www.wsj.com/articles/trendy-brands-market-gender-neutral-styles-1469040311 I am assuming there is no direct tzniut problems. A story I am told is that R Chaim Kanvesky objects to a man wearing a watch on the grounds of "lo yilbash". This in spite of the fact that he received a watch from his father-in-law (Rav Elyashiv) upon his engagement. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 15:08:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 16:08:57 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] obsolete and meaningless In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Jul 20, 2016 11:49:04 am Message-ID: <14691353370.8AD27fCE.22473@m5.gateway.2wire.net> > > In the introduction, list of mitzvoth, and books Mada' and Ahavah, > the authorized version bears the signature of the Rambam, which > renders every other text witness, obsolete and meaningless. (so you > can put your Frankel in genizah). > This is strong language. The manuscript was copied in Rambam's lifetime, by a copyist whom Rambam knew, but didn't Rambam himself write that he had not personally examined the copy that he was signing, words to that effect? Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 16:18:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:18:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > Instead Tosafot seems to be saying that at least > for children the important thing is information. Perhaps the key words here are "for children". Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. "Learning to learn" is no diferent than learning to daven, learning to do chesed, etc etc. This seems to fit very well with what I remember about the mitzvah of chinuch in general. If the teacher is not a good one, then it is indeed a very big waste of time. This also answers my question about "anu m'kablim s'char" at a siyum. Thank you Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 21 20:16:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 23:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] incorrect learning of Torah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 07/21/2016 07:18 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > Not being Bnei Mitzvah, perhaps they indeed get no s'char for their learning, and their learning is purely a practical means of acquiring knowledge and skills that they'll need later. This is also a good point, but I think the central point, which RET is completely not taking into account, is that this is not a teacher of mishna, or of thinking, but simply of the text of Tanach. Either he is teaching the pesukim correctly or incorrectly, and really what is the point of learning to read a pasuk incorrectly? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 22 10:27:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] consent to be included in an eruv In-Reply-To: References: <578D9598.9060603@sero.name> Message-ID: <4a0216c1-afed-4316-be28-9040ba93a226@sero.name> This was rejected from Areivim, but gmail decided the rejection was spam so I only just now saw it. On Areivim, Torahmike wrote: > An Eruv requires consensual participation of all Jews within its > boundaries. Not only can every Rabbi object, every Jew can. > Ironically Eruv vandals who live within a given eruv don't have to do > anything to an eruv to physically take it down, they just have to > declare they don't consent to have a zchus in it, and it's > automatically pasul. And I replied: > This is not true. Nobody's consent is needed, and nobody's protest > can passel it. The person who makes the eruv gives a share in the box > of matzah to every Jew who has property within the boundaries, and they > have no power to refuse it. Zachin le'adam shelo befanav, even if he > explicitly objects, unless there's some way in which it is really a chovah > for him and not a zechus, giving him grounds for his objection. He replied: > Not true. See tosefes shabbos in the name of the atzai elmogim. My first response, which was bounced from Areivim: Reference, please. If this were so there would be no eruv anywhere. To which he replied privately: > C. The Tosefes Shabbos is found in siman 367 I believe. My reply, which was bounced form Areivim: I just went through the Tosefes Shabbos on the whole chapter 367 and there is no reference to Atzei Almogim, or any hint that a person can object to someone else sponsoring his share of an eruv -- which makes sense, since this siman is entirely about who can contribute bread on the owner's behalf, not about someone sponsoring it, which is in the previous chapter, graf 9. So I looked at Tosefes Shabbos on that paragraph, and once again there is nothing about a right to object, and no reference to Atzei Almogim. Torahmike also wrote: > It's actually explicitly clear from the Shulchan Aruch itself that > Zachin baal kaarcho wouldn't help, since his only solutions are for > his wife to contribute on his behalf or for bais din to force him to > participate. My reply: That's where they're actually going door to door collecting bread, and there's nobody willing to sponsor his share. If someone is willing to be mezakeh him al yedei acher there's no problem. To which I add now: In a city the whole issue discussed in ch 367 doesn't apply, since there isn't extra bread for each person, so there's no question of who should contribute the objector's share. The same box of matzah suffices for the whole city, and the sponsor is mezakeh it to everyone al yedei acher. There is no piece of matzah that can be said, even in principle, to be any one person's individual contribution. So not only is nothing being asked from an objector, but he's not even receiving a gift, to which he could object because he's a sonei matanos. So what tzad chovah can there be, that would entitle him to object? Torahmike then wrote: > Tosfos bottom of Eruvin 81A says you can't include a person in an > eruv by force even for free. The Bach brings it in Siman 369. My reply, which once again bounced: I haven't got time to go through the Bach right now, including going back to ch 366, but I want to point out right away that the Bach you cite agrees with the rule I cited, that omed vetzaveach works only if there is a way in which it's a liability. See the end of the first piece of Bach on this siman, about four lines before the end, "that even though it's a benefit for him, we count it as a bit of a liability because maybe he has some reason why he doesn't want to join the eruv, so here also we can say that even though he wants to join the eruv maybe he has a reason why he doesn't want to do it by a free gift". Thus in order to prevent zachin le'adam there needs to be a down side for him. If there isn't then we don't care whether he likes it or not. I still haven't had a chance to go carefully through this Bach. It's long and rather confusing. But even if he does hold that one can't include a person in an eruv b'al korcho (though one *can* go to beis din and take his share by force?!), Rashi and the Rosh disagree, and the Shulchan Aruch and pretty much everyone else I've seen pasken like them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> I thought this piece was both thoughtful and quite timely for the Three Weeks, so I wanted to share. -micha Home > Achdus > Antidote for Baseless Hatred By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller I'd like to talk about loving each other freely, and Jewish unity. An interesting gemara (statement from the Talmud) tells us something we already know: Jews are the most quarrelsome of people. And the talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) are the most quarrelsome of Jews. Everyone knows the joke about the island where the man built two synagogues: the one he'll go too, and the one he won't set foot in. I've been to places like this, where there are several synagogues and none of them has a minyan (quorum). We do this to ourselves. In Israel, if there weren't a law requiring that every political party have at least somebody voting for it, there'd be 5 billion political parties. There's a famous joke that dates from the beginning of the state. President Weissman visited President Truman, and Truman asked him, "So, isn't it something, being a president?" Weissman replied, "It's incredibly burdensome." Truman said, "What do you mean? I'm the president of 186 million Americans. You're the president of only one million Israelis." To which Weissman replied, "No, I'm the president of one million presidents." This is who we, the Jewish people, are. The Fragmentation of Truth The Maharal asks why Jews are so divided. He brings a gemara that lists many predictions about the world before Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. One is: "Truth will be absent from the world." The word for absent is nehederet, which Rashi (the foremost medieval commentator) explains comes from the word eder, flock. Before Mashiach comes, truth will be such that every group is like a little flock. And within each flock will be sub-flocks. The fragmentation will be enormous. The reason for this, the Maharal explains, is that to Jews, truth is very significant. We can't be laid-back and say, "You have your truth; I have my truth; they're both true." It doesn't sit right with us. At the same time, we each have our own individual access to truth -- and this is what divides us. What do I mean by "access to truth"? There's a gemara that says that when G-d created the world, He conferred with all His attributes. He asked Kindness, "Should I create the world?'" Kindness said go for it. Then He asked Justice. Justice was much more equivocal. Then He asked Truth. If you were Truth, what would you say? "Forget it! There's no place for me in Your world. I can't exist there." Why? Because the world is defined by time and space, which are subjective. And subjectivity means no truth. So what did G-d do? He picked up Truth and smashed it to the earth so that it shattered. Concerning this, it says in Tehillim (Psalms): "Truth will sprout forth from the earth" -- meaning there's a little piece here and a little piece there. But because we're Jews, when we find our own little piece of truth, we see it as the whole picture. To give in and say "Maybe what you see as true is also true" is very painful -- because how can I be tolerant of your view and still be a person of truth? Because of this, the gemara says Torah scholars are the least accepting people, because for them truth is The issue. Either something is true, or it's not. In the era before Mashiach, the yearning for the whole picture, in which each fragment of truth joins with the others and forms something larger, becomes very great. But it's presently beyond our grasp. Different Kinds of Truth This is one reason for our disunity. It's not just ego. It's not just limitation. It's the fact that we care about truth, and we're unwilling to move from our position. The question is: Is this something we should adapt to, or move beyond? And if we move beyond it, do we still retain truth? We can get an idea by looking at the classical example of Beit Hillel (the house/school of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the house/school of Shammai). They disagreed about a lot of things. And the Talmud's conclusion, "These and these are words of the living God" -- i.e. they both speak truth -- doesn't seem to work. How could they both speak truth while saying different things? It's nice, but is it honest? Let's look at an illustration of their differences. In the times of the Mishnah, people would dance before the bride singing songs about her. The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). The gemara explains that this dispute is really about the nature of truth. Is truth in the mouth of the speaker or in the ear of the hearer? Shammai would say it's in the mouth of the speaker. If you believe in truth, make sure nothing false comes out of your mouth. Hillel disagreed: Truth is in the ear of the hearer. What's important is not so much what you say as how it's received. Let me give you an example. Suppose I said about my neighbor, "He isn't going to be arrested." If he's done nothing criminal, that's certainly true, but what image is created in the listener's mind? Or how about, "He's not being charged with wife-beating." Again, this is true, but the image that he may be beating his wife is false. And that image is created because the listener is who she is. Now, Beit Shammai would say that's the listener' problem -- let her learn not to hear what isn't said. Hillel would say you can't expect her to do that -- hearing what isn't said is the human condition. The halacha (Jewish law) is according to Hillel. But both are equally valid interpretations of truth. When Mashiach comes, we'll rule according to Shammai, meaning that we'll have to take responsibility for how we hear truth. If we yearn for messianic perfection, what does this mean? It means we have to learn to hear the truth, no matter what it sounds like or whom it's coming from. Dealing with Differences We see truth differently because we have different personalities and experiences. Imagine a nice, empathetic person, the kind who could easily attach to anything -- the kind who cries when she sees ads for Kodak moments. If you convince her that someone is persecuted, she'll immediately side with him. Now picture an entirely different person -- one who loves reality. "I don't want to know your feelings about the sunrise -- I want to know how hot it is. The people in the Kodak moment are not real -- they're actors who don't even know each other. Lassie will not come home." Such a person won't automatically empathize with someone portrayed as a victim. She'll be concerned with truth and justice. So the first problem in dealing with interpersonal differences is that we tend to see the world through our own eyes. The only person who rose above this was Moshe (Moses). The gemara says that Moshe saw through an "aspaklaria meira," "clear glass." The rest of us see things through the shadings of our personality and experience. So two people can see the same thing, but not see the same thing. The other factor influencing our vision is experience -- our circumstances and upbringing. Different people are raised to see the world in different ways, and can wind up with completely different frames of reference. For example, a student of mine, before she was religious, had an abortion clinic. She's an extraordinarily compassionate person who believes very strongly in life. But her education taught her to see only the mother's life and needs. She therefore concluded that abortion equals compassion. As soon as she realized that compassion includes the unborn child, her perspective changed. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see things as clearly as Moshe. Our middot (character traits) aren't perfect, and neither is our education. So we see as far as we can, but it's not far enough. The only truth we can rely is the Torah, because it comes from G-d and not us. One rule, then, for getting beyond the issue of "your truth" versus "my truth" is to question whether or not your picture of truth fits G-d's truth. If the answer is no, then you may have to accept the fact that your vision is limited. Posted in Achdus (C) 2016 Beyond BT From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:25:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Beyond BT: Antidote for Baseless Hatred In-Reply-To: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> References: <20160726220135.GA10262@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > The Mishnah asks: How do you dance before the bride? -- i.e. what do you > sing about her? Shammai's school of thought was: Tell it like it is. > "The bride is nasty, vindictive, selfish" -- say the truth. Hillel, > on the other hand, said that no matter what she's like, say that she's > kind and nice (as the groom undoubtedly thinks). This is not the pshat at all. Beis Shammai certainly didn't say one should sing about the kallah's defects! What they said was that one should praise whatever qualities she has, and ignore her defects. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing, but there's always *something* nice to say. Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she lacks them. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:19:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:19:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] lo yilbash In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221958.GA17257@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 01:16:19PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : How is the prohibition of "lo yilbash" affected by gener neutral clothing I am unclear as to what the question is. If it's not exclusively women's clothing, what's the hava amina to say there is a problem? -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Jul 26 15:12:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:12:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] on current day nezirus In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160726221243.GC13206@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 09:41:26AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2016/07/interesting-psak-annulling-vow-of.html : is hatarat nedarim sufficient to remove nezirus status? of a kattan? Yes, nezirus is a kind of neder. RSRH would say that they're connected roots -- /nzr/ vs /ndr/, given that both /z/ and /d/ are articulated with the teeth. See Nazir 62a for a discussion of hataras nedarim of nezirus. It's done. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 06:55:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:55:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 06:27:55PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : According to recent daf yomi an animal that eats food in a public : thoroughfare the owner is not liable because animals have a right to walk : there. (BK 14 ...) The gemara distinguishes between two beraisos by saying that the one that says that the owner of the cattle is not liable is speaking of a chatzeir hameyuchedes lezeh ulezeh -- bein lepeiros bein leshevarim. As opposed to R' Yoseif's bereisa, where the chateir meyuchedes lepeiros ve'einah meyuchedes leshevarim. So it seems ot be more about how people plan on using the space than on whether they have the technical right to do so. : Does the halacha change in modern times when animals don't walk down a : public street. So I think the animal's owner is liable, but not because the halakhah changed -- and I am not ruling out it could change -- but because the other beraisa applies. As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume do not apply. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:06:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:06:24 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> References: <20160728135529.GC4974@aishdas.org> Message-ID: > > > > As for whether it could change if needed, it might be related to basar > kafui and chalav hacompanies. Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav > yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't. Some see > them as taqanos, but do not apply to the current situation for other > reasons. And yet others see them as pesaqim in pre-existing dinim, and > therefore of course they no longer apply if the realities they presume > do not apply. > > The question is whether there is a difference between "issur ve-heter" and financial halacha In kinyanim (4th perek of Baba Batra) it is pretty clear that the entire perek is talking about what is assumed to be included in a sale would change with the times. My question is whether responsibility for damage would also change as what one is assumed to accept (animals wlaking down the middle of the street) changes with the times kol tuv Eli Turkel -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 08:57:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Sholom Simon via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:57:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim Message-ID: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, and 1 issaron per keves. L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! Does anybody have any insights? -- Sholom From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 07:08:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:08:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: <57841A55.20608@sero.name> References: <796dee1c8b704e09899c75aba2847127@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> <20160711215020.GE31833@aishdas.org> <57841A55.20608@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160728140837.GD4974@aishdas.org> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 06:14:45PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera. Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when blessing their children Fri night. And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? (There are other cases where the safeiq ends up lehaqeil, eg not showing kavod to a niftar who earns it but is short of parents or a rebbe muvhaq.) I take it this means the MY would not give a terumah to pircheiq kohanim. Unsurprising, for a Galizianer -- or any Ashkenazi, the people who (in chu"l) have this minhag WRT duchaning as well. : Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to : lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it : would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk. But isn't this circular? We only don't mutter about the kohein abstaining from duchaning on a weekday or Shabbos because we removed the norm of doing so. So why did the minhag go to every Yom Tov and not just Yom Kippur -- also once a year? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 11:15:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] praising the bride In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 18:25:57 -0400 From: Zev Sero > Whereas Beis Hillel said *every* kallah should be described as "na'ah > vachasudah", regardless of whether these are in fact among her qualities, > because these qualities are expected of every kallah, so by omitting them > from her praises one may as well be shouting from the rooftops that she > lacks them. Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the groom?s eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah". That is, it is entirely truthful, along the lines of Rebbetzin Heller's original teitch. (Also, for the record, it appears to be a beraisa, not a mishna; see Kesubos 16b, bottom) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:16:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:16:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times Message-ID: RMicha Berger wrote, "Some see melichah within 3 days and chalav yisrael as taqanos that apply even when the reasons don't." Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up -- yotzei v'nichnas. Those who permit hold that yotzei v'nichnas is not the hetter; it is the fear of being caught, and fear of USDA penalties puts it into the same category. In other words, it is their opinion that so-called "chalav stam" is not a new category of chaleiv akum with a hetter; it is chaleiv Yisraeil. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:10:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:10:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha in changing times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160728211013.GC24533@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:16:19PM +0300, elazar teitz via Avodah wrote: : Those who are mattir chaleiv hacompanies do not consider it a change : in halacha, but rather a hetter built into the g'zeira itself. While the : original g'zeira was milk milked by a goy whom a Jew did not witness, the : g'mara itself says that it is not necessary for the Jew actually to witness : the milking; it suffices that the goy fear that the Jew can show up... Yes, that's Rav Moshe's approach. However, the Peri Chadash YD 115:6, quoting the Radbaz, undersoof that the problem was the risk of adulterated milk directly. Not a gezeirah, but a pesaq. IIRC, the IM specifically says he is holding like the CS, not the PC. Along the same lines, the AhS (#10) quotes the Issur vHeter that as long as there is no risk, the milk is kosher. However, the AhS, in his disagreement, clearly did not understand the PC as saying what RMF later cdoes. He insists that in the case where there is no measurable risk of adulteated milk, one would still have to have a Jew watch part of the milking (as per the Rama). RMF's qulah would not override CY as the AhS describes it. He could say that even the Chasam Sofer only requires yedi'ah and not actual re'uyah, but this doesn't fit the AhS. Which is why I originally listed three shitos: the Chasam Sofer's (gezeirah, and therefore not dependent on the metzi'us), RMF's (gezeira, but relies on yedi'ah enough to be dependent on the metzi'us), and the AhS' understanding of the IvH and how I was reading the PC (pesaq, and thyerefore directly a function of metzi'us). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder] micha at aishdas.org isn't complete with being careful in the laws http://www.aishdas.org of Passover. One must also be very careful in Fax: (270) 514-1507 the laws of business. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 13:55:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 23:55:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas Message-ID: Two things struck me in last week's parasha (in EY, this week's in hu"l): Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the Levite families? In the list of the other tribes, why do they appear in that order? It seems at first glance to be Leah's children followed by Rachel's followed by Bilhah's followed by Zilpah's (each group in age order), but how did Gad get right up after Reuven and Shimon? I suppose a good answer to this would need to cover all the other places in the Torah with a list of all twelve tribes. Any thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 19:07:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Zev Sero wrote: > But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our > kohanim's yichus is uncertain, so every time they duchen they > are risking an avera. R' Micha Berger asked: > Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know > many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when > blessing their children Fri night. I don't think those fathers are relevant to the question. The fathers chose those pesukim because of the meaning in those words; they are appropriate words with which to bless the children, and they use them for that purpose. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. That's the red line. If a non-kohen attempts to actually give Birkas Kohanim, *that's* the aveira, and my understanding of the Minchas Yitzchak as cited by RZS is that if a person mistakenly thinks that he is a kohen, and therefore goes through with duchening with all the correct procedures and kavanos, that's assur. (B'shogeg, of course, since he doesn't realize that he's a non-kohen, but an issur nevertheless.) RMB again: > And if there is a safeiq, how can they make a birkhas hamitzvah > -- safeiq berakhos lehaqeil? Good question. And similarly, if there is a safek, how can they make an exception for Yom Tov? My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 14:57:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 17:57:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] leviim on duty In-Reply-To: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> References: <13d6c9b9-9e29-88f0-68e9-27a90c9eb902@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <20160728215741.GA10271@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 04:53:21AM +0200, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: : RZS was correct, that my original post I mistakenly stated where : they were and what they're job is. I looked at the Mishna and the : Rambam and it is clear why no one does it today. Number one, they : would have to go to Har Habayit and who says that this mitzva is : docheh the possible karet issue? Secondly, according to the Rambam : they are there to give kavod to the Beit Hamikdash. Is that what : Levi'im would doing to today, when the Beit Hamiqdash isn't there : and that mosque is? If there is no Beit HaMiqdash, why are they : needed? 1- The kohanim guarded in the 3 locations mentioned in the mishnah. But the gemara (Tamid 27a) lists the 21 places the leviim guarded. 3 of them were below where the kohanim were. So a kohein was at Beis haNitzotz, and a levi stood at Sha'ar haNitzotz. In addition 5 guarded the gates (some gates were not guarded -- see machloqes there), 2 guarded the west causeway, and another 2 guarded the the area at the end of the causway. I count 11 shemiros that could be done today without risking kareis. (About 5 years ago I encountered two Temple Mount Faithful types in uniform -- complete with a beret emblem depicting bayis sheini, standing shemirah in an attempt to fulfill this mitzvah. And driving the chayalim protecting the southern archeological garden crazy.) 2- There is a BHMQ today -- qudeshah lesha'ata, qudesha lae'asid lavo. In bayis sheini they even did the avodah before actually building the building. (They were meqadesh the building, then the Kusim slandered us to the gov't and permission to build was temporarily rescinded.) After all, shemirah is for the kavod of the Borei, not to keep the valuables or the structure safe. So actually having a physical bilding should not be relevant. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If you're going through hell micha at aishdas.org keep going. http://www.aishdas.org - Winston Churchill Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Jul 28 16:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:15:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Two questions on Pinehas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85fbbf42-fd27-02fc-e937-2090a99e211f@sero.name> On 28/07/16 16:55, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why is there no mention of Moshe's children in the lists of the > Levite families? They and their children were too few to constitute a mishpacha on their own, so they were just subsumed into the general family of Kehos, just as the descendants of Bela`'s children other than Ard and Na`amon were counted as the Bela` family, and the descendants of Mochir other than Gil`od were couned as the Machir family. They could also have been subsumed into one of the other Kehosi subfamilies, just as the descendants of any children Yosef had after Yaa`cov's passing would be counted in the tribe of Efrayim or Menashe. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 04:14:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:14:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: Last week R Michael Avraham continued his series and talked about the second shoresh of the sefer hamitzvot - This is the most difficult shoresh discussing why mitzvot learned through the 13 middot are not considered as Biblical mitzvot. A short summear 1) Since the Shoresh was written in Arabic many rishonim did not have access to it. It is claimed that the Rambam later regreted not writing it in Hebrew. Though translated it was not well known in many circles. 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were formal rules developed. 3) Tashbetz - Rambam is only talking about the immediate source of the halacha. However the substance (tochen) is from the Torah. Problem is that it doesnt't seem to fit into the words of Rambam Furthermore Rambam in a teshuva stresses that marriage with money is derabban and so one can't claim that what is in Yad Chazakah is a mistake. Ramban - accepted the Rambam literally but disagreed with him 4) The second shoresh is rarely quoted in the Yad Hazakah. A few exceptions include a) marrying a woman through money (or a ring) seems to be only derabban while using a "shtar" which is also learned from a drasha is de-oraisa b) suppressing one's prophecy - there is no "azhara" these seem to contradict the Tashbetz but OTOH there are only a "few" exceptions So it seems that the Tashbetz is usually correct but there are exceptions. RAM's basic claim is that there are 2 types of drashot - somchot and yotzrot. Somchot means the drasha expands and explains a known Torah law. It may be known through mesorah or verify something known by logic. Yotzrot means that ir creates a new halacha not previously known (the concept is already used by Ralbag with hints in Kuzari and Ohr Hashem. Most drashot are somchot and they create a deoraisa as explained by the Tashbetz. However there are a few exceptions - yozrot - which are rabbinic. The second shoresh is talking about the drashot yotzrot whic the Rambam says is derabban. However, there are only a handful of these. The vast majority are somchot are indeed the Yad Chazaka lists these as Torah commandments. Example - marrying a woman through "money" is learned by a gezera shava "kicha-kicha" which is yozeret. In this case we use the Tashbetz that the source is rabbinic but the content is Biblical. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 05:42:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 15:42:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote. (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Jul 29 07:11:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 14:11:24 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Toiveling in a Lake Message-ID: <1469801456636.39571@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. A recent Halacha Yomis (linked below), cited Rav Belsky, zt"l's ruling that that one may immerse a utensil in a lake, provided it has not rained in the last few days. Can you please clarify what is the reasoning for this? (Subscribers question) Halacha Yomis July 13,2016 - Tevilas Keilim A. The general rule is that spring water is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing, while rainwater and melted snow is acceptable only when stationary. In situations where there is a mixture of rainwater and spring water, we follow the majority: if mostly rainwater, the water must be stagnant, but if mostly spring water, the stream is acceptable for tevilah even when flowing. Although many Rishonim write that one may assume that the majority of water in a river is spring water, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 201:2) writes that it is proper to be strict and not toivel in a river during the rainy season. Rav Belsky, zt"l was asked about toiveling utensils in a small man-made lake in the Catskill Mountains. This particular lake was fed directly by a river, and because the water also flowed out of the lake, it was not stationary. The concern was that the majority of water might be rainwater. Rav Belsky, zt"l responded that if a mikvah was not easily accessible, one may toivel utensils in this lake, provided it had not rained in the last few days. Since it had not recently rained (and there was also no concern for melting snow), one may assume that the majority of water was spring water. Furthermore, Rabbi Belsky advised that utensils should not be toiveled on the edge of the river or lake, but should be immersed at a deeper point. This is because Maharik 115 (quoted by Shach, Yoreh De'ah 201:11) says that even if the majority of water is spring water, one still may not toivel in any part of the river that was swollen outwards by the rainwater. Large lakes (which are viewed as stationary bodies of water) and oceans are kosher for tevilah at all times, even if it had recently rained. Please note, this ruling was intended only for utensils. One should not use rivers or lakes for other types of tevilah without first consulting with a Rabbi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 05:41:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:41:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Child to Open an Electronic Door on Shabbos Message-ID: <20160731124144.GA24868@aishdas.org> We were discussing on Areivim some months ago what is done in areas like much of France where locks are increasingly electronic. Here's a related teshuvah by R' Asher Weiss http://en.tvunah.org/2016/07/29/using-child-to-open-electronic-door-on-shabbos/ in the sense that is shows how totally R' Asher takes for granted that opening the lock is a melakhah (rather than, say, a shevus). Question: Shalom! Here in Russia we have electronic locks on house doors. On Shabbat when davening is late we have difficulty to get in because a neighbors do not come and go at that time, so we have to wait for a long time. So is it possible to give an electronic key to a two years old baby and he bring it (without eruv) and unlock a door himself? Answer: If the child is taught during the week to open the door himself, and he is given the key before Shabbos to hold, and when you arrive home he goes and opens the door without being told to do so, and he is opening it to get himself inside, this would be permitted. Obviously if there is another feasible way to arrange entry without using a child to do melacha for you this would be preferable. Sources: There are 3 potential issues we face when a child is doing Melacha we are benefiting from. Firstly, the there is an issue of sepiyah beyadayim, the general prohibition against directly causing even a small child to do an aveirah. In this case it would seem there is no sepiyah as he is given the key far in advance, and when he opens the door he is doing so mainly for himself. Even on the small side there may be sepiyah we could rely on the leniency of the Rashba that a child may be given a Rabbinic prohibition when it is for his own needs. Secondly, there is the issue of Chinuch. A child of such young age is not yet higi'ah lechinukh and so would not need to be stopped from transgressing. Finally, there is the issue of a child who is oseh al da'as aviv, even if one does not cause or command his son to violate a transgression, if he is doing so for the sake of his father he must be stopped, see Mishna Shabbos 121a, and Biur Halacha 266:6 s"v haga"h who discusses whether this is a rabbinic or Biblical prohibition. In this case however it would seem that as long as it is clear that the child wants to enter the house for himself, we need not be concerned that he is doing melacha al da'as aviv. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nearly all men can stand adversity, micha at aishdas.org but if you want to test a man's character, http://www.aishdas.org give him power. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Abraham Lincoln From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 08:58:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 15:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Men and Women and Vows Message-ID: <1469980690273.2870@stevens.edu> The following is from the commentary of RSRH on the Pasuk 30:4 in parashas Matos. 4 But [as for] a woman, if she vows a vow to God and binds [herself]a bond in her father's house in her youth, A man's vow is binding on him from the outset. He can - and should (see ibid. 59a; cf. Commentary, Devarim 23:22ff.) - submit his vow to the national community and its representatives, so that they should examine the vow and decide on its fulfillment. Only in this way can a man dissolve his vow. For a man creates his position in life inde- pendently, and if he binds himself with a vow that cannot be absolved, he introduces into his life a new element that is not ordinarily applicable. This element changes and individualizes his life, and, since he is independent, he is able to take this individuality into account when he shapes the conditions of his life. Not so for a woman. The moral greatness of the woman's calling requires that she enter a position in life created by another. The woman does not build for herself her own home. She enters the home provided by the man, and she manages it, bringing happiness to the home and nurturing everything inside the home in a spirit of sanctity and orientation toward God. The woman - even more than the man - must avoid the constraint of extraordinary guidelines in her life, for they are likely to be an impediment to her in the fulfillment of her calling. >From this standpoint, one can understand the prescriptions instituted here out of concern for the woman. The Word of God seeks to insure the vowing woman against the consequences of her own words, and therefore confers on the father and on the husband a limited right to annul vows - on the father, as regards vows of a youthful daughter still under his care; on the father and on the fianc?, as regards vows of a betrothed daughter; on the husband, as regards vows of his wife. b'nureha. There is a deep psychological basis for the following halachah, which has no parallel anywhere in the Torah: The age of maturity for vows starts earlier than that for all the other mitzvos. In the case of the other mitzvos, this is the halachah: The male is considered an adult after his thirteenth year; the female is considered an adult after her twelfth year, for the Torah recognizes that her intelligence matures at an earlier age. Both are considered adults, only if - in addition - they have produced signs of puberty. The binding force of vows, however, begins one year earlier: in the thirteenth year for boys, and in the twelfth year for girls, provided that they know that it is to God that vows are made (Niddah 45b). In these years, the boy becomes a youth, and the girl becomes a maiden, and there is great significance to the resolutions that they vow in this period. These are resolutions uttered secretly, known only to God, but they are often decisive for a lifetime. The rich contents of the life of a noble man or noble woman are often only the ripened fruit of a resolution vowed to God in the dawn of youth. This would explain the loving seriousness with which God receives the vows of narim and naros who are maturing into His service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Jul 31 20:15:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 23:15:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah vachasudah?. How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see her bride until the wedding? Sure, it sounds nice to say that every bride is beautiful. Why not also say that every groom is handsome? IMHO this is not reality. Little do we know how many grooms were quite disappointed with what they saw. They weren?t marrying the wedding gown. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 01:12:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:12:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked What is the issur for a non-kohen to recite bircas kohanim? The Gemara is Kesubos 24b states that there is an issur aseh for a non-kohen to duchen. Rashi explains "Koh t'varchu atem vlo zarim". On the other hand Tosafos in Shabbos 118b comments on the Gemara about R' Yosi where he said that he always listened to his friends even to go up and duchen (even though he wasn't a kohen), that it would seem that there is no issur for a non-kohen to go up and duchen except for the beracha levatala. The Charedim explains the Gemara is Kesubos that the issur on the non-kohen is that he has a mitzva to be blessed by the kohanim so if he goes up he loses out on that mitzva. Also see the Rama at the beginning of Siman 128 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 08:27:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 11:27:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <79ea9ab5-894a-261a-6f36-4184bfb6f772@sero.name> On 31/07/16 23:15, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: > How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn?t even see his > bride until the wedding? [...] Little do we know how many grooms were > quite disappointed with what they saw. This is precisely why Chazal forbade being mekadesh someone without seeing her first. So it isn't true that they didn't know what they were getting. The typical way a shidduch worked in those days seems to have been that a young man would see a young girl and be attracted, and would ask his father to approach the girl's father to negotiate terms. Or, if he was older, he'd approach the girl's father himself. The girl's own preferences would be consulted only after everything had been tentatively arranged. For an example of what can happen when a groom doesn't see the bride first, see the short marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Which actually worked out very well for her, since the divorce was amicable and she remained the king's close friend. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:19:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride In-Reply-To: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> References: <800BC8CA-6476-463D-9FB9-1EB21EC8B507@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160801161909.GB30132@aishdas.org> On Sun, Jul 31, 2016 at 11:15:43PM -- 0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Along the lines of what Zev writes, Rav Berkovitz shlita told us that : pshat in Beis Hillel is that in the grooms eyes she is surely "na'ah : vachasudah". He probably cited the Maharsha, who explains the gemara that way. The problem is that one is allowed to mislead (meshaneh es ha'emes) for peace, but should still avoid actually lying. So the Maharsha explains how the words could be taken as technically true, even if misleading at face value. : How can you say that when in days of old, the groom didn't even : see her bride until the wedding? I don't think that was true of the era in question. Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. Even though I presue most marriages were not made that way, it still does not speak of an era in which marriage was expected to be arranged. (Similarly, a generation later.... Rachel and Aqiva, her father's head shepherd, fall in love and decide to get married. Kalba Savua does not react like Tevye the milkman, "They gave each other a pledge? Unheard of. Absurd!" What only bothers him is that his daughter chose an ignoramous. A condition Aqiva corrects, thanks to the motivation provided by his wife.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger People were created to be loved. micha at aishdas.org Things were created to be used. http://www.aishdas.org The reason why the world is in chaos is that Fax: (270) 514-1507 things are being loved, people are being used. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 09:32:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 09:32:32 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: r slifkin here [ http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer ] argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid arguments. is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of arguably flawed posits are sufficient? is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:48:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:48:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801204825.GA5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:40:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat only : derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did not see a major : problem is using a toilet that has an automatic flush or even an automatic : door. Flushing a toilet or opening a door is allowed. The electricity is : not doing anything that could not be done manually. ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, like that toilet or door. On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 09:59:29AM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : American (among others) law requires that all dishwashers operate only : when the door is closed. This is mainly to prevent injuries by someone : sticking his hand into the machine while it is operating. It also prevents : water from exiting while the machine is operating. : : A mechanic could override this mechanism and allow the machine to : operate while the door is open but would be violating secular law and : dina demalchusa. : : From a halachic viewpoint the problem is that closing the door would : allow the machine to turn on later via a shabbos clock... Well, assuming the US isn't being crazy, chamira sakanta mei'isua anyway. (Not to mention dina demalkhusa also being assur, although not in the same league as avoiding piquach nefesh or shemiras Shabbos.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:19:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:19:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, : addressed this issue explicitly... : In this fascinating letter, he also adds some other considerations: :> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but :> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to :> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one :> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law :> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's :> opinion... I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not stand on their words." To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally. And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full field of divrei E-lokim chaim. The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the doinant position is that it is invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into the contrution. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When memories exceed dreams, micha at aishdas.org The end is near. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Moshe Sherer Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 13:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 09:59:57PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : RMA also pointed out that the Ritva claims that there are two kinds of : asmachta. One is just a device for memory and is a pure derabbanan. However : there is a second asmachta which is really hinted at by the pasuk. : Nevertheless it has a status of a rabbinic law. : RMA the claims that both the Rambam and Ramban agree to this even though : they seem to disagree. He the goes another step and says that nevertheless : they have a disagreement. Rambam holds that chazal are representatives of : G-d. However the Ramban disagrees as sees chazal as "shiluche didan" and we : must listen to chazal as a natural extension that we accepted on ourselves When it comes to qiddush hachodesh, they act as sheluchei didan. Also, for buying qorbanos tzibbur. I am also reminded on RSZA's position on electricity (to tie in a second thread), which appears to be based on the idea that near-universal agreement of today's posqim, who are not semukhim (in the Sanhedrin sense) make a gezirah, no less so than Sanhedrin. Which would also imply that Sanhedrin's power to make taqanos is as sheluchei didan. But whatever you think of the 2nd paragraph, and RMA needn't sign on to RSZA's chiddush even if you agree with my take on the Minchas Shelomo, it remains that the Sanhedrin acts as our shaliach in other contexts. Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work when the adam objects. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 14:56:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 17:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <263ead17-72b9-bb42-6451-508ab9b5a80c@aishdas.org> Reuvain Meir Caplan's comment on Slifkin on FB: > It's funny how Rabbi Slifkin writes in such a fundamentalist way in > lack of nuance, yet criticizes such fundamentalism. He describes the > two approaches as being the ONLY approaches available besides his own. > I agree that both approaches described are bad, but I also think it is > wrong to assume that the third option mentioned is the only other way > to go. After all, if a Mormon experience filled someone with religious > inspiration/beauty, is Rabbi Slifkin saying one should be Mormon???! > (obviously not). I think that a better approach is to actually deal > with the issues. If we truly believe that Torah is from HaShem, than > there has to be an answer to these problems in either the > interpretation of Scientific evidence (or lack thereof), or in > understanding the Torah itself (including such things as the idea that > Chazal used the science of their day). This is what I was hoping this > group could assist in. We need orthodox Jewish scientists who are > expert in the field under discussion to be able to objectively say > what is a matter of interpretation of results versus indisputable > observed fact. Some of (and I emphasize some) the so called > "pseudo-science" approaches are not that bad as they show an > alternative interpretation of the scientific findings which does not > contradict the Torah. No one should ever claim that such arguments > "prove" anything, only that they show that the "science" does not > dis-prove the Torah. This removes a "barrier of belief" and allows > rational modern individuals to be able to approach Torah seriously. If > the schools do not have OJ scientists on hand (which they don't) than > they should teach these issues a'la RYGB and describe every opinion, > why that opinion thinks they are right, where to go to find more info, > and who to talk to. No hiding anything and no making things up. Craig Winchell's comment there: > I found it tragic that he took 2 laughable books and felt the need to > argue against them. He should fight those deserving of the fight. Let > those who still have standing fight the good fight against these books > and the philosophies behind them. By making it his fight, when he > himself has been discredited (improperly or properly), he is > guaranteeing that his argument will not be taken seriously among those > who have the power to change the Jewish world. As it is, there are > plenty who would pooh-pooh these books and those who believe they > represent a legitimate view of the world. My comment there: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. KT, YGB On 8/1/2016 12:32 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > r slifkin here > > [ > http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/07/strengthening-emunah-via-denying.html?utm_content=buffer35a29&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ] > > argues essentially that the teachers of emunah are using invalid > arguments. > > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? > or is it that in a hermetically sealed environment these types of > arguably flawed posits are sufficient? > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way , or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 1 16:20:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 19:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] derabbanan In-Reply-To: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> References: <20160801205920.GB5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 01/08/16 16:59, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Which could provide a mechanism for why a taqanah that never catches on > does not become law. After all, zakhin le'adam shelo befanav doesn't work > when the adam objects. Only when there's a tzad chovah. Every time we find mentioned that omed vetzaveach works, we also find an explanation for why he has a legitimate objection, why he might legitimately not see it as a zechus. Of course any gezeira by definition has a tzad chovah. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 05:34:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:34:52 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] antidote for baseless hatred Message-ID: <> R Zilberstein in a shiur on doctors giving out information about prospective kallah/chattan. There are times that the doctor knows information that would be important for the other side to know but the law prevents him from revealing information. R Zilberstein's advice was to say something like "I am not allowed to give out this information" exactly to hint that there is something to be looked into further. So according to Rav Zilberstein there are occasions when one should exactly say the above quote (BTW my doctor friends tell me that they are not even allowed to say this without permission) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 06:18:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:18:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? Message-ID: <1470143914205.35239@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. May I purchase a new car during the Three Weeks? A. Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l discusses this question in Igros Moshe OC 3:80. He distinguishes between three types of vehicles: 1. A car bought for personal use requires a Shehecheyanu and may therefore not be purchased during the Three Weeks. As discussed in yesterday's Halacha Yomis, a Shehecheyanu should not be said during the Three Weeks. 2. A car bought for family use requires the beracha of HaTov V'Hameitiv, since Hashem has shown kindness to the family. This beracha may be recited during the Three Weeks (Shaarei Teshuva OC 551:18). A car may be purchased under such circumstances during the Three Weeks until Rosh Chodesh Av. It may not be purchased during the Nine Days, because it is similar to new construction, which is prohibited during the Nine Days because it brings joy. 3. A truck or a small car designated for business use may be purchased during the entire Three Weeks, since it is needed for work. The beracha of Shehecheyanu should be postponed until after the conclusion of the Three Weeks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 15:13:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:13:13 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Double Billing Message-ID: <1470175978352.50608@stevens.edu> From http://www.businesshalacha.com/en/article/double-billing For most regular people, charging clients a few hundred dollars an hour makes for a very comfortable livelihood. Yet, human nature is such that regardless of the amount a person earns, he is always looking to increase his income. For a business owner, there are numerous approaches he can take, from raising his prices to increasing sales volume to branching out into different product lines. For a professional whose income is solely based on billable hours however, there are only two ways to increase his income. He can either raise his hourly rate, or increase his billable hours. Raising rates is often difficult, as there are pretty standard rates for a professional of a given level of experience and competence. That leaves increasing billable hours. When a professional is first building his practice, that is very doable. However, a successful attorney will soon reach a plateau- he is physically capable of working only so many hours per day. At that point, it would appear that the attorney's income should stagnate. There are however, a number of creative methods to increase billable hours without actually working more. However, these approaches raise ethical, legal, and halachic questions, which are the focus of this article. See the above URL for much more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:10:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: R' Saul Newman asks: > is anybody writing / teaching with methods that are not assailable? ... > is it even possible to teach in an irrefutable way, or will there > always be a 'ta shma' on any type of proofs one tries to bring? If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions that can be raised. However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and insignificant. To the latter group, the argument is a valid proof, but to the former group, the argument is just religious propaganda. My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof were publicized. As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be contagious. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:45:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 09:45:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] best way to teach emuna Message-ID: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions. (Remember, the mitva of hinukh is primarily incumbent upon the parent.) If your answers do not satisfy them, it is a good idea to have others to whom you can direct them for answers. And that requires openness to other derakhim as well. What worked for you, might not work for your children, so letting them move to the right or the left or somewhere else in the middle (while continuing to encourage observance of halakha) is a smart hinukh strategy. Bear in mind, though, that your child is ultimately a bar or bat behira and at some point really becomes responsible for him/herself. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 23:25:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ezra Chwat via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 06:25:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: H Lampel wrote: "I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the Mishnah ....[Edyot] 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions equally.[ And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side." No one is more qualified to explain Rambam, than Rambam. In his Perush 'Sharkh alMishnah' in Edyot , he clarifies his understanding of this Mishnah as only Bdi'eved: "kad 'amal", that is- if there was a Bet Din that 'already' held and practiced like the minority, their position would stand until an empowered bet din would overturn it. When the given bet din originally practiced it, in was not yet a minority opinion. This could only happen before the conclusion of the Mishnah. After the codification, the majority becomes Davar Mishnah and the psaq-according-to-minority would overturned automatically (TB Sanhedrin 33a). A ruling that's not explicit in Mishnah would continue to be open for plurality until the conclusion of the Gemara (Rambam MT Sanhedrin 6:1). "The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe that halakhah is Constitutive." Very well put. In his introduction to MT, Rambam even holds that Halakha was universal until the conclusion of the Talmud. Uniformity of Halakha was only lost in the ensuing 7 centuries. When this too became unattainable, Rambam allowed himself to return the Torah Sheb'al Peh to its original condition: "without questions and answers". Rambams authoritative position ,may have been acceptable in the centralized yeshivot of Africa, Andalusia and Asia, who were used to poskening by authoritative post-talmudic Halkhic handbooks (like HG, Rif) anyway (Shut RI migash 114). Unfortunately for Rambam, this stance was obsolete-upon-inception in Europe, where local rabbis where still deciding according to their understanding of the Talmud (Rosh, Sanhedrin ibid). On the other hand (In Rambam himself, internally, there's always another hand), in his epistle to Lunel, Rambam appears to agree, at least in principle, with the Europeans. Here he writes that only because Talmud study outside of Europe was so shallow, Rambam was forced (Bdi'eved?) to conceive a uniform Code. Ezra Chwat From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 19:34:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:34:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] RHS on shabbat - electricity Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > RHS felt that electricity in general is prohibited on shabbat > only derabbanan based on a rabbinic metaken maneh. Hence, he did > not see a major problem is using a toilet that has an automatic > flush or even an automatic door. Flushing a toilet or opening a > door is allowed. The electricity is not doing anything that > could not be done manually. R' Micha Berger qualified that statement: > ... assuming that causing light without heat is not havarah. > Eg the indicator LEDs one often finds on automatic devices, > like that toilet or door. I'd like to narrow down that qualification. One could hold that light without heat is indeed hav'arah, but if the light of this device is incidental to the device's main function, then it might still be "only" d'rabanan by virtue of Melacha She'ein Tzricha l'gufa. As I wrote on these pages in Avodah 17:93, slightly over 10 years ago: > According to Rav Moshe Heinemann (of the Star-K; in "Guide to Halachos" > by Nachman Schachter, published by Feldheim, pp 29-30): > Activating any electrical device to generate either heat or light or > increasing the setting on an electrical device to generate more heat > or light is prohibited because of the Melacha D'oraisa of Ma'avir. > Examples include intentionally 1) activating a heating pad, 2) > activating a light, 3) increasing the setting on a dimmer switch > and 4) increasing the setting on an electric blanket. > > However, activating a device that provides unnecessary heat or > light, e.g. a phone with a lighted dial in an illuminated room, > is prohibited as a Melachah D'rabbanan. > > Activating or increasing the setting on any electrical device whose > purpose is other than generating light or heat, e.g. a fan, an air > conditioner, a timer or an automatic door etc. is prohibited as a > Melachah D'rabanan. ... ... ... I concede that an indicator light such as RMB described might very well be a melacha she*tzricha* l'gufa, and therefore d'Oraisa to those who hold that light is hav'arah even without heat. My main point of this post has been to illustrate that when the individual buttons of a telephone light up in an already-lit room, it can still be d'rabanan. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 2 22:08:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:08:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Praising the Bride Message-ID: <29679.5df23011.44d2d639@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> Batei Hillel veShammai was late bayis sheini. This is an era when Tu beAv included guys picking our their dates from among the girls dancing. << -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>>>> According to the Book of Our Heritage (Eliyahu Kitov), the dance courtship of Tu be'Av dated back to the time even before the bayis rishon, to the pilegesh beGiv'ah incident, when it was instituted as a way for the decimated tribe of Binyamin to get wives. Kitov says that on that same date, the ban against women marrying outside their own tribe was repealed. The day that ban was lifted was celebrated as a minor yom tov from then on. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 01:30:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:30:01 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: I saw an interesting article https://shmuelmaybruch.com/2016/07/26/nothing-to-pout-about-the-kosher-status-of-genetically-modified-salmon/ about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will halacha deal with these innovations? How will things like lab grown meat be treated? Will this create a schism between the Charedi world which is generally conservative in these areas and organisations like the OU? How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? Will these advances make almost everything kosher (or treif)? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 08:15:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 11:15:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> > On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:53:02PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: The Rambam, in his response to the criticisms of R' Pinchas HaDayan, >: addressed this issue explicitly... >:> See how explicit it is! -- that it is /improper/ to mention anything but >:> the finally decided-upon halacha alone, and it was only necessary to >:> mention opposing opinions during those times that some practiced one >:> way, and others practiced a different way, when some obtained the law >:> according to one sage's opinion, and some according to another sage's >:> opinion... On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. > Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin > between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that > a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not > stand on their words." > To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally > BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the > kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. And in explaining the answer, M'leches Shlomo and Tifferess Yisroel do take the subjects of "'lo omdu" to be Shammai and Hillel, and understand the mussar lesson and how we get there as you presented it, but Rambam (followed by Tos. Yom Tov) and Raavad take the subject of "lo omdu" to be the Sages, who despite the status of Shammai and Hillel, the "avos ha-olom," rejected both Shammai and Hillels opinions when presented with a vetted testimony as to the final decision of the previous links in the mesorah (and in one case despite the lowly occupation of those who presented it.) The mussar-lesson is a different one (although not, of course, a conflicting one). But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > 1:5 goes on to explain other rejected opinion, is particular daas yachid > when there is a rabbim, although it could be other quashed opinions > equally. > And this is because some day, there may be a beis din empowered (gadol > mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan) who may choose the other side. Again, not quite the Rambam's payrush on the mishna. The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the daas yachid. The chiddush is that a later Beis cannot override the decision of the first Beis Din, *even to resurrect the former Beis Din's original daas rabbim,*without being gadol mimmenu b'chochma u-b'minyan. The Raavad supports this payrush with the Tosefta on this mishna, although he does go on to suggest your take as an alternate one. (And even so, this limitation, according to the Rambam (and followed by Tos. YT) is only speaking about laws that are not derived through darshonning pesukim.) > Speaking even more generally, the AhS makes a point in preserving the > full fuzziness of the law. You don't know when you might need a senif > lehaqail or a din for a seh'as hadechaq, and you need to know the full > field of divrei E-lokim chaim. According to the Rambam's letter, this is the function of Gemora, but not a halacha code such as the Mishna or his Mishneh Torah. > The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely > Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe > that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq > is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is > invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into > the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim. The enterprise of the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim and all Rishonim is to identify (without utilizing post-Sinaitic Heavenly revelations) and follow the principles behind the decisions of the previous links of the mesorah, tracing them back to Sinai to apply them to current situations. I don't understand what you mean by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 3 18:01:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:01:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c1c74a9-1de6-1b14-09cc-6acbb94c3b90@gmail.com> >> >> [Aidios] 1:5...The Rambam and Raavad in his first payrush take it >> that the first Beis Din, after deliberation, ultimately accepted the >> daas yachid... And Rav MiBartenura explains the mishnah this way as well. >> Zvi Lampel > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 04:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 14:00:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? Message-ID: Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Interview is available here: https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:54:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 08:54:58 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ any validity to this ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:20:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 11:20:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed : details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) : where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were : formal rules developed. R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs to be formalized into rules your can articulate and pass on. (Related: Rupture and Reconstruction.) Including shakhechum vechazar veyasdum -- Osniel ben Kenaz formalized the laws lost by the cultural collaps of Moshe's petirah; the AKhG formalized the laws lost when we assimilated elements of Ashuri and Bavli culture. Obviously the mishnah was a major step in that direction. A hora'as sha'ah is kind of like poetic license -- being immersed enough to know when the grammar can and should absorb being bent despite the formal rules not having room for it. Search the archives for Koppel and Metahakhah; I have done better summaries in the past. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 08:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot In-Reply-To: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804152025.GA5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 4, 2016, 6:20 PM Micha Berger wrote: > On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 02:14:31PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: >: 2) Moshe Rabbenu knew only general rules. The later rabbis developed >: details and used the derashot to base them. Similar to grammar (dikduk) >: where people knew intuitively the rules but only many centuries later were >: formal rules developed. > R Dr Moshe Koppel's Metahalakhah... A native speaker doesn't need to > learn formal rules, exept in special and complicated cases. Someone > learning English as a second language is more likely to know what the past > pluperfect is than a native speaker. Similarly, halakhah should be known > as a native speaker. But as we get further from Sinai, more and more needs > to be formalized into rules you can articulate and pass on... The difference is that rma uses this concept to explain the second shoresh in sefer hamitzvot this shoresh is rarely used on yad chazakah Next shiur is this Friday From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 10:03:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:30:01AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote: : I saw an interesting article ... : about the kashrut of genetically engineered salmon. They are mixing in DNA : from non-kosher fish to make the salmon grow at a much faster rate and the : question is does the DNA from non-kosher fish make these salmon non-kosher? : This raises fascinating questions about the future of kashrut. How will : halacha deal with these innovations?... : Will these advances make almost everything : kosher (or treif)? And does this relate to the medrash that says that the chazir got its Hashem will give it back ("lehachziro") to Benei Yisrael le'asid lavo. The rishonim struggle with how this is to be understood, given that the Torah is unchanging. Some (RHS didn't give sheim omro, it was a sermon) take the medrash as referring to the Notzrim, who claim to be a twin religion, like the chazir displaying kosher hoofs, thus its link to Edom -- Yisrael's twin. That the medrash encodes a nevu'ah about the handoff to messianic rule. The Ramo miPano (Asarah Maamoros, chikor hadin 4:13) says that le'asid lavo, the pig will chew its cud. And the pig has vestigial remnants of the necessary stomachs. But it is a change in metzi'us that allows for the change of pesaq without actually being a change in halakhah. Perhaps genetic engineering will provide a different resolution to the question, one no rishon could have foreseen. OTOH, if "these advances make almost everything kosher", maybe the question becomes worse. We removed anything unique about pigs to warrant them in particular getting the name "chazir". Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When you come to a place of darkness, micha at aishdas.org you don't chase out the darkness with a broom. http://www.aishdas.org You light a candle. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:28:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:28:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <4e1125.7d520aba.44d4f151@aol.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> How will poskim who have no secular education whatsoever, understand and deal with these kinds of questions? << >>>>> Answer: the same way they have always understood and dealt with questions that come up -- by acquiring the necessary knowledge as needed. They consult with experts who have that knowledge in whatever field of science, technology or medicine is relevant. And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:35:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:35:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> > ... challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's > a challenge, just to use one example... and of course we have ways > of responding to [them], ... > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social-media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/ The 19th century R. Yiztchak Isaac Halevy's Doros HaRishonim addressed these issues (and R. Avigdor Miller disseminated his teachings in the 20th century). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 13:30:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 16:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> References: <001901d1ed52$95b763a0$c1262ae0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160804203009.GB13912@aishdas.org> There are two questions here. On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 10:10:20PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : If there are any irrefutable proofs, I haven't heard of them. For every : "proof" I've heard for G-d, emunah, etc., there *are* doubts and questions : that can be raised. : However, while some people consider the doubts and questions to be : reasonable and significant, others consider them to be ridiculous and : insignificant... RAM is writing about the question of teaching people whether to believe. I happen to agree with him. As Rihal has the Chaver say in Kuzari 1:13in response to the king's description of the philosopher's position: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved. It is ironic that this section of the Kuzari was itself turned into a proof. He lauds mesorah over the need for proof, and that is mined for ideas to turn into just such a proof? I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it is someday. The difference between the two responses is whether their experience with Yahadus engenders that confidence. In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, what makes those postulates self-evident? In science, theories are built by induction from experimental data. It's not reliable, which is why some theories get disproven. But often you build from so much data that the idea being basically correct -- or yeilds basically correct predictions -- becomes beyond reasonable doubt. And that's why, as the Rihal notes, two philosophers can equally convincingly argue for contradictory conclusions. Not only can they have a difference of opinion about whether the deductive logic is valid, they could find different sets of postulates self-evident. And when the givens aren't empirical, so we can't share our evidence behind our choice of postulates, deductive proofs are really just arguments, without the certainty we would like to think they offer. Contrary to the Rambam, and that whole era of Kalam / Scholastic Philosophy, most people in practice do not keep Shabbos because they proved Hashem's existence from first principles, prove that a First Cause must be Good, that a Good G-d must have provided some kind of moral guidance ... Torah ... TSBP.... Shabbos, halachic process, etc... Rather the people who keep on keeping Shabbos find tha the experience satisfies "Man's Search for Meaning" in a way that argues in favor of the halachic process, TSBP, its claims about its own originals, and so on back up to G-d. It's a first-hand experience we can't simpy share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing. And even of those who didn't, some simply have other costs that keep them following mitzvos anashim meilumadah. And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. Only a seed. Because the aesthetic elegance of talmud Torah is itself an emotionally charged experience. For that matter, even mathematicians are more willing to believe a beautiful proof. On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 09:45:07AM +0300, Simi Peters wrote: : Best way to teach emuna? Individually, according to the needs of the : student. It's not a one-size-fits-all proposition. : Absolutely best way to teach emuna? By example. If you've thought a lot : about issues of emuna (which is usually a good idea), you can often use your : conclusions to educate your children when they ask questions... RnSP is answering a different question. Once you have a student / child reacy to believe, how do we teach them the content of /what/ to believe beyond the first couple of iqarim they accepted. And I agree with her as well. When Shelomo haMelekh says "chanokh lenaar al pi darko" he isn't "only" speaking of individualized educational strategies. Although he could mean that too. He is referring to something they will not veer from even when they frow old. (Mishlei 22:6) A derekh hachaim. I have often said here, perhaps on Areivim, that as many kids who leave the MO world because it is too open and holds too many enticements other than torah, as many leave the chareidi worlds because they are too narrow in roles for adults and feel stifling. Especially if the ideal role isn't one they are constitutionally fitted for -- like an ADHD boy who is raised believing he will always be 2nd-rate because he can't sit and sheig. If our communal walls were lower, so that we were willing to raise our children al pi darkam, not according to our own derakhim, far fewer would leave. But first, most do not even learn a derekh. We teach halakhah, the are of walking (check the /hlk/ shoresh) but not a derekh. Aggadita is taught in vertlakh; not as a coordinate full-blown and consistent picture. (The DL world in Israel is somewhat better than most in this regard.) Yes, when we start doing so, we can discuss which derekh to teach and how to find a moreh derekh if one happens to be better suited to a different derekh than one's parents'/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 09:50:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804165031.GB5090@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 10:07:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller wrote: : R' Micha Berger asked [about the issur of non-kohanim duchaning]: :> Which is? The worst they did was recite three pesuqim. I know :> many fathers who are not kohanim who use these pesuqim when :> blessing their children Fri night. ... : There's nothing wrong with doing so, but the reason that there's nothing : wrong with it is because they are giving their *own* bracha. It is modeled : after Birkas Kohanim, but it makes no attempt to *be* Birkas Kohanim. : That's the red line.... So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle road and say Hallel without a berakhah. Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei and a lav. ... : My *guess* is that it is an exaggeration to say that "our kohanim's yichus : is uncertain", and that m'ikar hadin we are confident that they really are : kohanim. But the safek is not absent altogether, and it is appropriate to : be machmir, keeping in mind that it is only a chumra, and there are real : dangers in being overly machmir when chumra is uncalled for. Yes, like our not performing an asei. If it's not really a safeiq, one is being meiqil -- ignoring the opportunity to fulfill a deOraisa. Aside from the opportunity to benefit from a berakhah as a berakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes micha at aishdas.org exactly the right measure of himself, and http://www.aishdas.org holds a just balance between what he can Fax: (270) 514-1507 acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 4 12:53:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:53:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160804195300.GA13912@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ : : any validity to this? 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. As RARakeffetR would say, you can't hide behind a hebrew term and thing about what you're really saying. An English speaker may not be all that insulted if called a "chamor", but translate that insult to English... Ha'aramah doesn't work with deOraisos. 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. 3- There is a machloqes between the Rambam and the Ramban whether the law of pilegesh only applies to kings. The Rambam limits it. The Ramban says anyone could have a pilegesh, and he points to pilegesh begiv'ah -- /someone/ had a pilegesh at a time when "ein melekh beYisrael, ish hayashar be'einav ya'aseh". I guess the Rambam could say just so, it was "yashar be'einav" to have a pilegesh -- there is no proof he was permitted to! The Rama holds like the Rambam, which I guess would close the door on the proposal for Ashkenazim. Although RYEmden reopens it (She'eilas Yaavetz 2:15). RYE's teshuvah was translated to English by R Geshon Winlkler. You can see it, and a discussion of the sources at . (I could not find a cheileq 2 on hebrewbooks.org. If anyone can find a sharable on-line copy of the teshuvah in the original Hebrew, kindly send the chevrah a link. I am betting many of us don't own one.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 09:37:36 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad Message-ID: someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. it lends the question why they brought it up in year 40 and not in years 2-40. obviously there was no land to be distributed in that time, but still. i joked that they were previously not desirable because their father wasn't shomer shabbos , and in light with his answer, kessef metahair mamzeirim... but i am sure the meforshim have other approaches... thoughts? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 09:45:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 16:45:46 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] How To Make Havdalah During the 9 Days 5776 Message-ID: <1470415509370.72744@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/6976 Have you given any thought to how you are going to make Havdalah this Motzai Shabbos? The proper way to perform Havdalah the Motzai Shabbos preceding Tisha B'Av (generally Motzai Shabbos Chazon) is one annual issue that seems to always have disparate approaches. The main problem is that the very essence of Havdalah is ending Shabbos, resulting in the fact that it is actually recited during 'chol', weekday. That is fine for an ordinary week, but Motzai Shabbos Chazon is halachically part and parcel not only of the Nine Days, but actually considered 'Shavua Shechal Bah Tisha B'Av'. This means that even the Sefardim, who are generally lenient with the Three Weeks' and Nine Days' restrictions[1], are still required to keep them during this week. And one of these restrictions prohibits drinking wine[2], the mainstay of Havdalah[3]. So how are we supposed to synthesize making Havdalah while not transgressing this restriction? Actually, this year, 5776 / 2016, this dilemma is doubled, as there are two Havdalahs in question, but interestingly, neither is truly on Motzai Shabbos Chazon. The first Havdalah is this week, Motzai Parshas Masei (well, Motzai Parshas Mattos - Masei for those in Chutz La'aretz), and the second, with the Taanis Nidcheh of Tisha B'Av being observed immediately after Shabbos's conclusion, gets pushed off until Sunday night (see Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 556, 1). Yet, the Nine Days' restrictions are still in effect until the next day and Havdalah needs to be recited[4]. Hence, the compounded confusion. See the above URL for more as well as for the two postscripts at the end of this article. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 5 10:22:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2016 17:22:50 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? Message-ID: <1470417733282.5847@stevens.edu> >From today's the OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When Rosh Chodesh Av occurs on Erev Shabbos, as it does this year, are there any restrictions on taking a shower? A. During the Nine Days, a person may not shower or bathe (Rama OC 551:16) but may wash his hands, feet and face with cold water (Mishna Berura ibid. 94) without soap or shampoo (Magen Avraham ibid. 41). In warm climates, where one tends to perspire, some poskim allow a brief shower in cold or lukewarm water, and when necessary soap may be used as well (See Piskei Teshuvos 551:48 and Moadei Yeshurun p. 132:14 and p. 156:80). This year we have two Arvei Shabbosos during the Nine Days. The first occurs on Rosh Chodesh Av and the second is the one which falls on Erev Tisha B'Av. On the first Erev Shabbos, for one who always honors the Shabbos by bathing on Erev Shabbos, the mitzvah of kovod Shabbos overrides the restrictions of the Nine Days and one may wash his whole body in hot water (Mishna Berura 551:89) and use soap (see Dirshu MB, Beurim 551:104 in the name of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, zt"l) even when not required for hygienic purposes. On the second Friday, Erev Shabbos Chazon, one may wash hands, face and feet with hot water. Nowadays, since people shower daily, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l allowed bathing the entire body as well (Moadei Yeshurun p. 133:21 and Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMitzorim p. 13:7). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 01:41:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 11:41:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do you teach emuna? Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 4:29 AM, via Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > He picked two strawmen and skewered them. Big deal. > Don Quixote tilting at the windmills. They are strawmen in an intellectual sense, but unfortunately, the world does not consist only of an abstract academic debate. These books have potential to influence thousands of young people, either giving them a dogmatic sort of faith, or ch"v, turning them off to Yiddishkeit altogether. It is quite a worthwhile endeavor to point out the problems with them. KT, Ephraim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 04:39:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 14:39:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] second shoresh of sefer hamitzvot Message-ID: To stress this is a short (sort of) summary of an hour shiur plus a chapter in R Avraham's book continuation of difficulty of Rambam claiming that anything learned from 13 middot is derabban previous shitot - Rambam rakes Rambam literally and asks many questions Tashbetz - Rambam is discussing the origin not the content RMS says that the Rambam repeats this several times especially in a teshuva and so it hard not to take it literally. As discussed before RMA distinguishes between a drasha marchiv (extends) which only extends a known halacha which is deoraisa and a drasha yotzer which creates a new halacha and is derabbanan except if Chazal explicitly say otherwise according to Rambam. Rambam bases this on "ein onshin min hadin" . While other rishonim limit this to kal ve-chomer Rambam extends it to all 13 middot. RMA likened this to rules of logic which Aristotle formulated. However people obviously used logical inferences before Aristotle. There are 2 types of logical rules. deduction really means that the conclusion was always there (All people breathe, Socrates is a person, therefore Socrates breathes) Induction goes from details to the general and is really only an educated guess Other rishonim (eg Ran) also distinguish between drashot that extend an existing halacha and one that creates a new halacha). However, Rambam is the only one that connects it to becoming a derabannan. example (only one he could find): in bigdei kohen the word "shesh" appears 6 times. The gemara learns a halacha from each one with the last being that the material shesh is "meakev" Rambam applies it also to "bad" like the gemara but it is not "me-akev". Achronim struggle how Rambam uses part of the gemara drashot but not all of them. Answer - most of the drashot are extensions and so apply from the torah. However that "shesh" includes" "bad" reveals something new and so it is not "me-akev". RMA feels the Ran would agree with this. Safek for chumra or kulah? RMA claims that not all rabbinical rules are treated equal. Rabbinical rules based are halacha le-moshe-misinai (ie mesorah) are le-chumra since this reveals something in the pasuk however a new rabbinical rule would be le-kulah. So for a rabbanan to be lechumra we need two conditions 1) it reveals a pasuk 2) there is a mesorah . One without the other we go "le-kulah". The Ramban asks that if rabbinic rules are learned from "lo tasur" why do we go le-kulah. The answer is that the pasuk only teaches that one must listen to the rabbis (no rebellion). However a safek on a rabbinical level is not a rebellion and so one can go le-kulah. De-Oraisa has content and commandment (eating pig is intrinsically prohibited besides not listening to the commandment). Halacha le-moshe misinai , divrei sofrim has commandment but not content A drasha that creates something new (yotzer) has content but no commandment. an example is to fear (et) G-d creates a new content to include talmidei chachamim In both cases it is derabbanan but safek is the chumrah.A gezerah of the rabbis is le-kulah. A drasha that just extends an existing halacha is a complete de-oraisa. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 07:01:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 10:01:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 08:54:58AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : http://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/after-10-years-as-an-agunah-and-2-getts-later-i-know-better/ R' Micha Berger commented: > 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in existence. > 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty > high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah > because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense > sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. I'm really not sure what you are saying here. I have no knowledge of the halachos of pilegesh, but the author there believes that: > Such a couple does not have the benefits of marriage > (spousal support, monogamy etc..), but either party may > end the relationship at any given point. The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 05:50:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 15:50:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food Message-ID: <> Of course R Katz left out RSZA who indeed learned modern science after consulting with experts in the field Without being disrepectful what modern questions of science did the Chafetz Chaim deal with? Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 06:04:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 16:04:31 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The kashrus status of genetically engineered food In-Reply-To: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> References: <20160804170300.GC5090@aishdas.org> Message-ID: R"n Toby Katz wrote: "And PS I object to the slightly snarky, disrespectful tone of this question. The greatest halachic authorities of our generation and previous generations -- think of R' Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon Ish, the Chofetz Chaim -- were not too uninformed or unsophisticated to deal with complex halachic issues." I wasn't being snarky or disrespectful I was being serious. Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years making it harder and harder for the layman to understand how things work let alone someone who has no secular education whatsoever. You have to be at least able to speak the same language, understand the terminology and scientific principles behind it to understand how the technology intersects with halacha. That is very hard to do with no secular education. The Mishna in Makkos quoted l'halacha by the Rambam states that the Sanhedrin should not hear testimony through an interprator the reason being that the translator may change the meaning and therefore change the din. The same idea would certainly apply here to cases of technology if the posek figuratively doesn't speak the same language as the experts and needs a translator. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 09:53:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Jacob Trachtman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 12:53:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right Message-ID: > > On Thu, 4 Aug 2016 12:50:31 -0400: Micha Berger wrote: > > > So have them say it al tenai. If the kehunah of a typical kohein today is > really a safeiq, then one would either be saying BK (withough a berakhah) > or pesuqim, depending on the tenai. > > Along simiar lines... One shouldn't say Hallel on stam any day, which > is why RYBS didn't say Hallel on Yom haAtzma'ut. Some take a middle > road and say Hallel without a berakhah. > > Seems pretty similar, using a tenai to say "if it's inappropriate, I am > 'just' saying pesuqim" to allow one to navigate a safeiq between an asei > and a lav. > > I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on the hachraah of a posek? ~Yaakov Trachtman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 14:00:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 17:00:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39680b5c-902b-a5aa-9440-83c1dafa551c@aishdas.org> On 8/2/2016 10:10 PM, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: ... > My personal belief is that Hashem designed the world in precisely this > way, lacking any unassailable proofs, so as to insure bechira > chofshis, which would not be possible if any truly unassailable proof > were publicized. > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be > contagious. If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. Evidence, you will find aplenty. You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! [Email #2] There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. [Email #3] On 8/4/2016 4:30 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > I think emunah has to start with the heart. When someone gets a question > they cannot answer, they could assume there is none and their emunah is > weakened ch"v. Or, they could shelve the question -- so confident in th > emunah that they assume an answer exists and hope to sfind out what it > is someday. > > The difference between the two responses is whether their experience > with Yahadus engenders that confidence. > > In general, deductive proofs are built up logically from a set of > self-evident postulates. However, when not dealing with sensory input, > what makes those postulates self-evident? While RMB has some objections (not-yet-enunciated) to the R' Noah Weinberg Lakewood Tapes that I love, RNW would call this the "ta'amu u're'u key tov Hashem" evidence of God's existence. KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 13:58:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2016 23:58:13 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] bnos tzlafchad In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97d2427c-f955-656a-cac3-74b81dcbd7a5@starways.net> On 8/5/2016 7:37 PM, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > someone asked me why all of a sudden after 40 yr they were > swept up to be married. why all of a sudden, he asked > rhetorically---and contended that , without a nadden they were not > desirable. the sudden promise of land made them desirable. In the novel The Daughters Victorious, the reason given is that it was because of the uncertainty of the inheritance between when they first asked about it and when they got their final answer. The book is heavily researched and footnoted, so I suspect the author had some source for it. If not, it's a reasonable supposition. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 7 22:14:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 08:14:45 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, August 8, 2016, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 06:50:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:50:40 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be cause of his not believing you. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 12:03 AM, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: > There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly > understood. Conversely, while this is not a popular position to take in our > day, there are no cogent arguments for abiogenesis. Yahadus qua Yahadus is, > indeed, more complicated - but possesses ample arguments as well. > > KT, > YGB > > > > On 8/4/2016 7:00 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > > Another important comment from Slifkin's blog: > > "Steve Savitsky interviewed Rabbi Moshe Benovitz of the NCSY( Savitsky > Talks, "Technology and Social Media: How Are They Affecting the Post-High > School Year in Israel?", 8/1/12, 14:00 in mp3, linked below): > > R. Benovitz: ...In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to > grips with the fact that some of the arguments-- historical arguments, > philosophical arguments-- that like I said a charismatic educator could > tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked > instantly on a hand held device that?s pulled out of a pocket. If those > arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need > to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. > > Steve Savitsky: Do you have an example of that? > > R. Benovitz: ...This is probably beyond the scope of this limited > discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But > examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when > you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have > been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The > chain of the Mesorah-- there is certain reason to believe that were times > where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that?s > a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of > sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the > archaeological realm. > > We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of > our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways > of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they?re not going > to, nor should they simply accept at face value. > > Interview is available here: > > https://www.ou.org/life/parenting/technology-social- > media-affecting-year-israel-stephen-savitsky/" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing listAvodah at lists.aishdas.orghttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:07:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:07:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Here is a more complete version of that exchange during R' Steve Savitsky's interview on OU Radio of R' Moshe Benovitz (13:00 in mp3 at ). The topic is that Google et al allows students to challenge a lot more statements than they have in the past. Statements really have to hold water. RMB: ... In the kiruv community, for example, they are coming to grips with the fact that some of the arguments -- historical arguments, philosophical arguments -- that like I said a charismatic educator could tell a person off the street and who would know better, is checked instantly on a hand held device that's pulled out of a pocket. If those arguments do not hold water, then we've done more damage than good. We need to adjust to that, and we should adjust to that. RSS: Do you have an example of that? RMB: ... This is probably beyond the scope of this limited discussion because there are obviously complexities and layers here. But examples like mass revelation at Sinai being the only way possible, when you have challenges from other sources, the fact that Torah seems to have been forgotten in certain periods explicitly in the Navi and the like. The chain of the Mesorah there is certain reason to believe that there were times where it was if not broken, but then it was down to a precious few; that's a challenge, just to use one example, [to that] mass revelation argument of sorts. [Similarly there are challenges] in the scientific realm, and in the archaeological realm. We need to be able to know that there is information at the fingertips of our students that of course we have answers to, and of course we have ways of responding to, but to just throw arguments out there, they're not going to, nor should they simply accept at face value. Someone who calls himself "Shades of Gray" posted this transcript snippet on a number of blogs about 2 years ago. Once in reply to a comment of mine on Torah Musings, and what I say below is what I concluded then: The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own history! Someone has said the above on-line, so the kid in yeshiva who needs the chizuq emunah will "pfff" at famous speaker X's invocation of the Kuzari Principle. We need to realize we have a much more critical audience -- in the sense of critical listening, and not just in the sense of being critical of anything taught -- than ever before. It is along these lines that I declined in spelling out what I find problematic in RNWeinberg's approach to teaching emunah. After all, if it's working for someone, should I be in the business of putting a pin in the balloon? However, since RYGB let on in public that I have such problems, and in light of this discussion that just showing intellectual honesty has more value than the specific arguments... RNW heavily engages in equivocation -- getting the listener to agree to a sentence using the term in one sense, then changes the sense on you. He gets you to agree that man is a pleasure seeker before getting down to how he defines "true pleasure". Man is a pleasure seeker is true by definition of the word "pleasure"; inherent in seeking is that we Another example: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker had them carry through that agreement once he limits "true pleasure" to that provided by a search for meaning, and more so, a religious meaning. And thus explicitly excluding from "pleasure" much of his evidence and examples of "man is pleasure seeker" when he got you to accept the notion. And he does this kind of equivocation repeatedly. He even tells the kiruv worker that the key is to define the terms for them -- or, more accurately "redefine", getting them to buy into new ideas by transvaluing terms in ones they already exist to O counterparts. And in his set of shiurim to Lakewood, he opens by getting them to admit they lack a systematic approach to hashkafah and need to think about their own answers for themselves. And that this is one of the goals of the shiurim. But then RNW spends nearly all his time on marketing tips like the one above than on actual hashkafah. They don't leave with a clearer picture of how to relate to the Borei or their tachlis in the world -- RNW never gets beyond the vertl uncritical-thinking and thus blind-to-dialectic level on the actual material. Eg On different days he presumes each side of the hashkafic Fork in the Road without noting the dialectic between them. Within the little actual teaching of Torah in the classes, RNW is relying on a lack of critical thought. Another example of relying on a lack of critical thought to pass self-contradiction past the audience, rather than teaching dialectically: When it comes to the opening man as pleasure seeker, transvaluation step, RNW invokes the Ramchal about real pleasure being only possible in olam haba. But in a later shiur he points out that death was an onesh, Adam qodem hacheit wouldn't have needed an olam haba, and that in the ideal there would be no olam haba. Which is why Yahadus focuses on improving olam hazeh. RNW argues that there must be an absolute truth. Something even more important now, dealing with millennials, than when RNW first noticed the relativistic core of modern thought. But not much later talks about each person having their own world, "bishvili nivra ha'olam" and how one world could have makas dam while the other has water. To reduce to three bullet items: 1- Heavy use of equivocation 2- More emphasis on marketing than on teaching 3- Self-contradictory obvious truths I didn't get to document examples of 4- dismissal by ridicule because I stopped taking notes by the time that got to me. But he ridicules subject-matter experts when and their entire field he doesn't like their conclusion, rather than presenting an actual substantive argument. He also both tells you to respect the student's intellect and perspective, and then ridicules how shallow both is. But specific instances didn't get recorded because by that point I was leaning toward not replying to RYGB for the above balloon-popping rationale. If R Moshe Benovitz were more inclined to name names, I have a feeling R Weinberger and Aish's approach to kiruv is exactly what he is talking about in terms of techniques that the advance of the information age rendered useless and even counterproductive. On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 05:00:14PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah wrote: : > As to the question posed by the subject line - "how do you teach : > emuna?" - my own method is "by example". By remarking to those around : > me about the Niflaos HaBorei, it is my hope that my emunah will be : > contagious. : If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. : Evidence, you will find aplenty. : You yourself make that point in your last paragraph! A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because he uses equivocation: a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs b- Tell him we have proofs c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think that most such decisions -- whether to become a BT or go OTD -- are based on experience and emotions, not logical debate. (I think both R' Yisrael Salanter and every secular psychological theory since would insist as much.) And the only reason why I wrote "most", because really I believe it's "all" is because the two categories overlap. Noticing a rebbe is making statements that don't stand up to scrutiny, or won't honestly discuss your question, is itself an emotional experience. Even ideas themselves -- such as a non-O Jews first encounter with hilkhos eved kenaani or mechiyas Amaleiq -- can evince emotional response. And frankly I hope they do. We will never reach someone with too much orlas haleiv for the question to bother him. As long as he has enough other experiences to motivate his sticking around for an answer. Which isn't the same thing as what RYGB is saying about evidence. As far as I can tell, RYGB's evidence includes arguments that are strong, but not the incontrovertible proof. (Since there are no such things.) I am talking about experience, from sensory inputs to the kind of math proof of shitah one would judge to be beautiful (not that judgment, the features that cause that judgment), to the satisfactions of one's search for meaning that Shabbos provides. I think it's the less rational side of people which decides 1- which givens are self-evident and which you question. And no deductive proof even starts without its first principles / postulates. Look at the intro to Moreh Nevuchim cheileq 2. 2- when you get convinced a question is an upshlug, and when it is just an interesting problem to be shelved for later. So that reason follows the conclusion one's life experience predisposed you to accept. Or, as one version of my signature file reads: The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying conclusions the heart already reached. RYGB writes: : There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly : understood.... I think this is true, but too much is hidden in "properly understood". ID started out just being the argument that no matter what science finds about origins, the evidence of design shows Divine Guidance behind that science. The original ID would include evolution with G-d using loaded dice. But then it got caught up in proving design (such as irreducible complexity) and became in the hands of Xian Fundamentalism a wedge to get Young Earth Creationism into science class, and then the atheists took this as the defining ID, with everything else being a Trojan Horse... And it's that which will yield 2.5mm hits of disproofs of ID. On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 08:14:45AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Ramban in his introduction to the milchamos writes that Torah is not : mathematics with objective proofs. Rather in Torah you try to find the : opinion that makes more sense to you based on proofs etc. : The same principle applies to discussions about emuna. There are no : absolute proofs and therefore we shouldn't go about claiming there are. MB here, but the Rambam wouldn't. Moreh ch. 2 is largely just such a proof. Which is why the Ramban objects. As does the Kuzari, before either of them. See Kuzari 1:13, 1:62-65. Whatever one philosopher can "prove" another will just as convincingly prove the opposite. Just working off different sets of givens, and considering different sets of questions irrefutable problems vs details to be worked out later. But that is less "based on proofs", as we would have for halakhah, and more "based on what fits what I have lived through". -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 12:58:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 15:58:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally > posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such > an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:26:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:26:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <8d64b3f6-e6d1-b44f-d24a-a8a3ca9da356@gmail.com> On 8/8/2016 3:07 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > ... The challenge is not that Tanakh > implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim > addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a > minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being > taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to > convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's > revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari > Principle -- and they're from our own history! This is what the Doros HaRishonim deals with, in volume 6, titled Tekufas HaMikreh. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 13:48:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 16:48:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RMB: >: If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. >: Evidence, you will find aplenty. > A point RNW makes, but again, I couldn't agree with his version because > he uses equivocation: > a- Get the student to say they'll accept O if we had proofs > b- Tell him we have proofs > c- ... but that "proof" doesn't mean what he thinks it does, it means > "as strong evidence as you demand for other decisions". > d- And then in other parts of the shiurim talk about the same proofs as > though they are proofs of the sort the student was thinking of in step (a). I think his point was making the student realize that his life decisions, and the things he considers as undoubtedly true are never really based on the mathematical-type proofs he is demanding. Nor most other things he considers "proven." He is making the student realize that the proofs he brings are on the level of certainty that the student accepts for almost everything else. Unless I'm missing something your referring to in (d). Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 15:13:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 18:13:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 10:01:51AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> 1- You would need a woman willing to be a concubine. ... ... : : Well, the author of that article is a woman who prefers that status, so I : think she has pretty much proven that there are indeed such women in : existence. As I continued, actually have to agree to be a concubine. Not hide from the fact by mentally refusing to translate "pilegesh", and wanting to be the concept that remains. :> 2- The price would be the eradication qiddushin. That's pretty :> high. Or to put it another way, every women caught as an agunah :> because we don't replace qiddushin with pilegesh is in a sense :> sacrificing herself for qedushas Yisrael. : I'm really not sure what you are saying here. If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. I don't think too many posqim would be willing to do that (assuming it works), even though the human cost in lonely woman who can't close a painful chapter in their lives is high. Which is why I said that the women who are stuck agunos because we are unwilling to pay that price are in effect sacrificed to preserve qedushas Yisrael. ... : The author concedes that kiddushin does have real benefits, and each of us : might add to that list, as RMB did. But it also has drawbacks. Each of us : weighs these factors differently, and given her experiences as an agunah, I : can certainly sympathize with the weight she gives to the ability for a : pilegesh to end that relationship unilaterally. As I do too. But as I hope I said more clearly this time: 1- I don't think women today would be willingly become pilagshos, if they really thought about what it means, rather than treating it as a dry term to protects against igun. 2- The price in qedushah is just plain huge. We are talking about taking an axe to the cornerstone of the qedushah of the Jewish home. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 19:01:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:01:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] pilegish status In-Reply-To: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> References: <20160808221351.GB32581@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809020118.GA3856@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 08, 2016 at 06:13:51PM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : If we eliminate the problem of man-made agunos (as opposed to actual : lost husbands) by eliminating qiddushin in favor of pilagshos, we have : done *major* damage to qedushas Yisrael. Someone wrote in private email that he didn't understand this part of my reply to RAM. So, to clarify in public with the assumption that if I wasn't clear, he wasn't alone: A pilegesh is a contract arrangement. She is provided for by the man, and this commitment legitimizes any sex between them. Like any other contract, each side trades the duties they're willing to impose on themselves in tradeoff for the gains. It's a step above zenus because it's monoandrous, and therefore the bonding nature of sex is being utilized, not subverted. But there is enough similarity between a pilegesh and a zonah for Radaq and Malbim to understand Shofetim 11:1 calling Yiftach's mother a zonah because she was a pilegesh, not a literal zonah. (The Radaq's perspective is much like mine; that must be where the idea got planted in my head.) In contrast, qiddushin is a restoration of the two halves of Adam -- "vedavaq be'ishto veyahu levasar echad". It's a beris, covenental, a union in which both sides commit to contribute to buld a common good. (Quite different than a contract.) The work Adam was made for. Quite a distance from a deal between a ba'al and a pilegesh to have various needs met. -- There is another issue, non-theoretical, that I said in my first post but not my second: See the Rema (EhE 25:1). The Raavad allows a commoner to have a pilegesh. The Rambam, the Rosh, the Tur and the Rama limit pilegesh to the king. Even RYEmden, a translation of whose teshuvah I posted a link to last time, refused to allow it in practice unless two others signed on. There as no record of those two others. So, in terms of halakhah lemaaseh (which admittedly isn't Avodah's focus), we don't allow pilagshos. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 8 20:44:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 06:44:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> References: <1b9600d8-7f90-9f5d-a6db-7e8b6c345787@gmail.com> <20160808190752.GA23531@aishdas.org> <1813bb21-00bc-45d7-1ce6-250460e71035@sero.name> Message-ID: The Ramban al Hatorah (Bamidbar 15:22) when talking about how the entire Jewish people could sin bshogeg writes: *"In our sinfulness, this has already happened in the days of the evil kings of Israel, such as Jeroboam, that most of the nation completely forgot Torah and the commandments, and the instance in the book of Ezra about the people of the Second Temple."* The Ramban writes that in the times of the first Beis Hamikdash as well as the time of Ezra most of the Jewish people *completely* forgot the Torah. So according to the Ramban these were not teshuva revivals but reteaching them the Torah that they had forgotten. On Monday, August 8, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 08/08/16 15:07, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > >> The point R' Moshe Benovitz was making in the snippet that was originally >> posted here was using "the Kuzari Principle" as an example of such >> an argument that won't hold water. The challenge is not that Tanakh >> implies a break in or a late start of mesorah (the topic Doros haRishonim >> addresses), but that it shows that at times the baalei mesorah were a >> minority, pushing a belief the masses did not share and were not being >> taught by their parents and grandparents, and yet they still managed to >> convince those masses on more than one occasion. Yoshiahu's and Ezra's >> revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >> Principle -- and they're from our own history! >> > > Only if you accept the premise that Y and E introduced material that was > new to their audiences. AIUI the traditional understanding is that they > simply led teshuvah revivals, getting people to return to obeying the Torah > that they already knew from their parents and grandparents. And that the > sefer torah found in Yoshiahu's day was identical to the ones they already > had, and the fuss was because it was was Moshe Rabbenu's long-lost sefer, > and it was foundrolled to the tochacha. > > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 02:52:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 12:52:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. some of the arguments of intelligent design include Irreducible complexity Fine-tuned Universe anthropic principle Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments against intelligent design properly understood Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the basis of Judaism -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 03:02:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 13:02:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous counter-examples of the Kuzari >>Principle -- and they're from our own history! I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied that their great-great-grandparents or whatever did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? Who says they were any different from todays "non-frum" who admit that their ancestors were believers, even if they (the descendants) consider them to have been naive for being such? Non-observance as such does not necessarily imply a denial that their own ancestors were believing and observant, and therefore "baalei masora" themselves. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:10:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:10:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Arizal: Ashkenazim should follow the way of Ashkenaz Message-ID: <6da9f1f9ef35498bbeabb60503138c24@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/ze9rdr7 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 12:14:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 19:14:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Gelatin Revisited Message-ID: <1470770074396.44982@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/hf7xzce It is well known that a few generations ago the Poskim discussed whether gelatin made from animal bones is kosher, and the general consensus in the United States was that it is not kosher. This article will focus on the more-recent developments regarding this ingredient. See the above URL for more. YL Note: Although the article is from 2005 I think that it is still relevant since it does not appear to have been updated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 13:25:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:25:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own :> history! : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had traditional grandparents to remember. In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. The mesorah was entirely broken. R Moshe Benovitz's assumption that Matan Torah was no better remembered than the alphabet compelling. But it needn't be; the fact that it's a plausible understanding of Tanakh that Yehoach or AkH had to start again from scratch is enough to defuse the usability of a proof that is based on assuming it can't be done. After all, RMF is talking about polemics, how to teach emunah, not whether or not a given proof actually is valid in the abstract. So, we can disagree about the validity of the misnamed Kuzari Principle and still agree with his point that insisting a student accept it is ineffective at sparking emunah for the current generation. (BTW, Rihal himself touches on this question, see the kings's words at Kuzari 3:54.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:11:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:11:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 09/08/16 16:25, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 01:02:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: > :> Yoshiahu's and Ezra's revivals are two of the most famous > :> counter-examples of the Kuzari Principle -- and they're from our own > :> history! > > : I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that these are "counter-examples". Do we > : have evidence that the "non-frum" in the days of Yoshiahu or Ezra denied > : that their great-great-grandparents or whatever > : did believe in the facts of Yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah? ... > > Things today are not as bad as then. Even in some of bayis rishon's > better times, most were ovedei AZ. So in the worse times, fewer had > traditional grandparents to remember. What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. How do you know this? > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. Where is this written? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:43:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9a4ffe7e-de3b-a5f5-9bc3-3d00f21164c9@sero.name> On 09/08/16 17:27, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. How so? Menashe certainly knew the Torah, and yet served AZ because his yetzer hara was strong. Frum Jews served AZ, just as today frum Jews get involved in all kinds of znus. It's a yetzer hara. It doesn't change the fact that 99% of the time they do right, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that they *know* right. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. Baruch?! Was he even alive then? And where do you see that it took anybody to recognise it? > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. That doesn't at all mean people had forgotten the Torah. All it means is that over the 850 years of bayis rishon it had become the custom to write sifrei torah in ksav ivri, so more people could read them, and Ezra reintroduced the practise of writing them in ksav ashuri. This doesn't show any lapse in the transmission of the Torah. The Torah in the new writing was the same as in the old. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:58:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:58:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] how do you teach emuna? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8c42491e-d1a1-0477-8e33-6792725cf379@aishdas.org> Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement for internal consumption. KT, YGB On 8/8/2016 9:50 AM, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > This is exactly the kind of thinking that R' Benovitz was talking > about. When you make absolute statements like "there are no cogent > arguments against intelligent design" it can easily have the reverse > effect and turn people off. Imagine the following. Someone comes to > you and asks how does Judaism deal with evolution etc. and you answer > intelligent design and explain it. He asked a question you answered > it, great. He may accept your answer he may not, but at least he will > see that you addressed his question in a reasonable manner and gave > him an answer. However, if you take that extra step of adding on an > absolute statement like "there are no cogent arguments against > intelligent design", it will probably backfire. 5 minutes after your > conversation he will google "arguments against intelligent design" and > he will see that there are over 2.5 million results. Just from that > alone he may conclude that since you stated definitively that there > are no cogent arguments against it and google provides 2.5 million > results that you are wrong and not trustworthy. Even if he actually > reads some of the results, he will probably find arguments that at > least at first glance seem like cogent arguments and will again > conclude that you are not trustworthy and are deceiving him and that > Judaism has no real answers. So your absolute statement which you used > to show how strongly you believe in something will turn out to be > cause of his not believing you. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:27:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:27:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. : How do you know this? It took Barukh to recognize it. :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. : Where is this written? Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 14:55:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 17:55:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. It is, indeed, neither the same thing as Creationism and nor evidence of the authenticity of Judaism. But the latter flows from it in a rational progression. KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:52 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php > > some of the arguments of intelligent design include > > > Irreducible complexity > Fine-tuned Universe > > anthropic principle > > Hence, I don't understand RYGB comments There are no cogent arguments > against intelligent design properly understood > > Hence, most scientists don't accept intelligent design, those that do > say it doesn't prove that the is a creator and it certainly has > nothing to do with Torah mi-Sinai and mitzvot > > While these arguments are good for some baale teshuva it is not the > basis of Judaism > > -- Eli Turkel > > > _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 18:48:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 21:48:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160809212721.GA31427@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Check out Pat Heil's blog. There are dozens of posts on topics just like this. A random place to start is: http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-wrapping-up-digs.html I consider Pat a talmida of mine, since she has learned Yerushalmi with my recordings. :-) KT, YGB On 8/9/2016 5:27 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 05:11:14PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: > : What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What > : makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These > : were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > : AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. > > You mean like the guy who consecrated a potsherd to Havayah "and his > consort, Asheirah", found among the material the Waqf bulldozed off > Har haBayis? He may have worshipped a god named Y-HV-H, but to talk > about him as a source of remembering matan Torah is a stretch. > > :> In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > :> recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > : How do you know this? > > It took Barukh to recognize it. > > :> In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > > : Where is this written? > > Sanhedrin 21b-22a. Shabbos 104a. Shakehechum vechazar veyasdum. Unless > you hold like Mar Zutra/Uqva and R Yossi who says this was the first use > of Ashuris for sta"m. (But both R' Sherira Gaon and R Hai Gaon reject R > Yossi's position. And the third position, aside from being listed last, > has the most names attached; pashut peshat is that it's the masqanah. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 9 20:06:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 23:06:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: Zev Sero via Avodah > What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? ...These > were*not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped > AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so. And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had been doing. And the thousands of prophets whom Achav assassinated were not a small portion of Bnei Yisroel who worshiped Hashem exclusively. And their preachings, while they were alive, to the Bnei Yisroel and Melachim to keep Torahs Moshe properly at the very least kept the mesorah from Moshe Rabbeynu on their minds. And were King David's tehillim expressing his love for Torah and mitzvos unknown to the following Jewish kings and their subjects in both Yehudah and Israel? Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 00:37:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:37:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Zev Sero asked: "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:43:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:43:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <> and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. Obviously neither side will convince the other. see eg http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html Brings me to inyane d-yoma Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 05:43:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 08:43:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > R' Zev Sero asked: >> "What makes you think that these ovdei AZ weren't also ovdei Hashem? What >> makes you think they weren't boki beshas (or its then equivalent)? These >> were *not* untraditional Jews. They were active Jews who also worshipped >> AZ, because they had a strong yetzer hara to do so." > The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews > completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 04:49:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:49:23 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] tzeit hakochavim Message-ID: We all know the controversy between GRa/Geonim/Bal Hatanya and Rabbenu Tam/etc over when is tzeit hakochavim and more specifically when shabbat is over. There are some communities that always choose to go le-chumra It would seem to me that it is hard to be machmir this coming motzei shabbat. The later one claims that shabbat ends the later that one cannot remove his/her shabbat shoes. For example ROY paskens that 20 minutes after sunset (but not earlier) one should remove leather shoes. For someone that holds like RT that is still shabbat and there is zilzul shabbat. However if one waits 60 minutes after sunset to remove ones shoes then one is wearing leather shoes on tisha be-av according to the Gra shitah. A similar problem exists on motzei shabbat that is chanukah. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 06:37:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 09:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't believe the philosophers and scientists. A child can understand Intelligent Design. A child cannot - unless he believes in magic - understand how inanimate quarks proceed to become complex living creatures. The article to which you link is a classic "take it on faith from me because I'm smart and you're not" position paper. Evolution in the sense of abiogenesis cannot be tested either. Unless you count the discredited Miller-Ury experiment. I find the analogy to Yirmiyahu and Chananyah offensive, but that's just a tactic... KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 7:43 AM, Eli Turkel wrote: > < intelligent and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. >> > > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the > identical thing. > One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is speculation. > Obviously neither side will convince the other. > see eg > http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/what_you_can_do/why-intelligent-design-is-not.html > > Brings me to inyane d-yoma > > Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson > will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that > within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. > > I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How > was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing > sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true > prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. > However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate > > > > -- > Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:35:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:35:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 11:25 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > In Yoshiahu's day, the number of people who knew enough Torah to even > recognize one when they found one was small enough to qualify as a cabal. > > I don't think that is the traditional pshat. > In Ezra's day, the masses had to relearn the the alphabet. > So what? That is exceeding common today among people who do not deny in any way that their ancestors were Torah-observant. In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing people about the origin of the Jewish people, i.e., the masses said to him "Come on, everyone knows that we Israelites are just the descendants of a bunch of local tribes and you made up this business about being slaves in Egypt"? If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I guess the whole thing really is a scam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:19:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:19:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 8:15 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> To not accept intelligent design is absurd. I am reasonably intelligent >> and cannot wrap my head around anyone rational denying it. > and the philosophers and scientists on the other side say the identical > thing. One complaint against ID is that it can't be tested and so is > speculation.Obviously neither side will convince the other. see I am always amazed at the claim by atheists and skeptics that there is no need for a Creator. How did the universe and nature get here? Well, they say it was always there. What about the highly unlikely eventuality of world full of complex creatures with complex organs? The odds of that happening randomly are beyond astronomical! They answer that L'Maaseh, it did happen. The fact is that no matter how unlikely it was, despite the fact the that the chance that this would happen is but one of an almost infinite number of possibilities... it was still possible. V'Ho Rayah -- it did. The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. There is no intellectual satisfaction (at least for me) in believing in the idea that matter has always existed over believing that it did not, but was 'put there' by a Creator. How we got from the 'Big Bang' of creation that happened about 15 billion years ago to the point where we have a variety of biological species -- then becomes a matter of detail that does not contradict God's 'hand' in it. This is where evolution and science comes in. Scientific inquiry and study can perhaps determine 'what' happened -- and when it happened along evolutionary time. But it cannot determine 'how' it happened. To say it was random natural selection no matter how unlikely -- is just a guess based on the desire to eliminate any metaphysical explanation of existence. Intelligent design is far more likely scenario and therefore -- for me -- a far more acceptable notion. It does not contradict science or Torah. Just because we can't conclusively prove the existence of a Spiritual Being doesn't mean He doesn't exist. Just my quick 2 cents (...based in part on philosophy courses I took with Dr. Eliezer Berkovits way back when I was a student at HTC). HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 07:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:17:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> References: <33ba509e-a83a-8905-922c-c48087f18f0b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 10/08/16 03:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> The Ramban that I quoted states explicitly that the majority of Jews >> completely forgot Torah and Mitzvos. > He refers to Yerov'am, not Yoshiyahu. I don't know his source that this > happened in Yerov'am's time, especially since the gemara tells us that > even by Ach'av's time they were still keeping kosher, and the names of > Ach'av's sons show that they still worshipped Hashem -- he didn't call them > Achazbaal and Baalram, but at any rate it has no connection to what was > happening in Yehudah, where they had and attended the BHMK even while they > were serving AZ in Gei Ben Hinnom. The Ramban writes that "shakchu rov haam hatorah v'hamitzvos l'gamri", he writes most of the nation completely forgot torah and mitzvos without any qualifications. The Radak (Melachim 2 22:8) comments the following on the story with Yoshiyahu: "Manasseh was king for a long time, for he reigned 55 years, and he did evil in the eyes of G-d, following the disgusting ways of the gentiles. He built altars to idolatry in the house of the Lord and he made the Torah be forgotten by the Jews. None turned to it, for all turned to other gods and the laws of the gentiles, and in 55 years the Torah was forgotten... so the Torah scroll was a surprise for them." From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:41:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Daas Books via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:41:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design + emuna Message-ID: There is a 3rd alternative: that we don?t know. I believe this is the position of most irreligious people; not atheism but agnosticism. They don?t disbelieve in a Creator, they merely say, the evidence for a Creator is no stronger than the evidence for a lucky accidental fluctuation in the nothingness of the mutiverse. You and I obviously disagree with their assessment, but that?s what they say. BTW, I am presently reading a wonderful book that anyone interested in this topic would do well to read. It?s called The Cosmic Code by the late Prof. Heinz Pagels . He tells the story of Einstein, Bohr, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in a very engaging and understandable way (i.e., as a story), and continually refers to God as the creator, and the scientist?s job is to understand God?s creation. It doesn?t come across as religious (I don?t know whether or not he was) but respectful of theism, in a very Einsteinian way (?I don?t believe God plays dice.?). He didn?t know Einstein personally, but studied at Princeton with people who knew him, and Einstein was often quoted as saying he got his intuitive insights from ?The Old One?. Here?s the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486485064?ie=UTF8&tag=j099-20 FYI Alexander Seinfeld > The idea of matter being infinite (always having existed) is just as > impossible to understand as the idea of an infinite Creator that is beyond > scientific detection in the physical world -- and believe that by using > random natural selection they hae obviated the need to believe in Him. > > They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad > infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' > premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By > definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no > creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no > less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:12:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:12:59 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing : people about the origin of the Jewish people... : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I : guess the whole thing really is a scam. You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle would say it is impossible for them to do so. We should also be clear about what is our actual topic, since I have already seen that RYGB and I are talking about different things. I was trying to answer the question in the subjwect line. Which I identified as having two parts: (1) giving someone convincing reason to believe, and (2) teaching the contents of belief once the reasons (and therefore the basic few individual facts) are accepted. I think Rn Simi Peters is the only one who broached #2. But even #1 it appears is not consistently the topic being discussed. E.g. on Sun Aug 7, 2016 @ 5p, EST RYGB wrote: > If you are looking for "proof" you will not find it. > Evidence, you will find aplenty. And yesterday (Aug 9, @5:58pm) he wrote: > Is Avodah a kiruv forum or a high level Torah discussion group? I was > not addressing how one approaches a questioner. I was making a statement > for internal consumption. Which is not about teaching emunah, but how does one gather evidence to create and develop their own justification for belief. RMBerkovitz was clearly talking about the difficulties of imparting reasons for belief given the age of Google. The original topic -- teaching emunah (subtopic 1). And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a few seconds of typing. To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to defuse the KP's power to convince. On the subject of proofs vs other justification for belief... Just today, RGStudent on Torah Musings pointed to part II in an exchange of letters wuth R/Dr Lwrence J Kaplan and Shmuel Rosner in like of RLJK's recent publication of a seifer from notes of RYBS's lectures on the Moreh Nevuchim. Quoting from RJLK's response: R. Soloveitchik is well aware of the change in intellectual climate from Maimonides' time to our own. He attributes it primarily to Immanuel Kant's successful refutation in principle (in R. Soloveitchik's view) of the standard rational proofs for the existence of God. That is, Kant showed - so R. Soloveitchik, along with most modern philosophers, believes - that one cannot rationally demonstrate the existence of God based on a scientific examination of either the existence or order of the universe, since scientific categories, as categories intended to organize finite empirical experience, are operative only within the bounds of time and space. In this respect, as the question correctly notes, "science and divinity are rarely seen as interrelated." Does that mean that Maimonidean rationalism is obsolete? For R. Soloveitchik, while it is impossible to maintain Maimonidean rationalism its original form, it may be possible to update it. Here my comment in my previous reply "that R. Soloveitchik's stress in these lectures on human subjectivity and, following from that, on the subjective nature of religious experience ... have a modern flavor and reflect his emphases more than those of Maimonides" is important. That is, while R. Soloveitchik's stress on subjective religious experience may not be true to Maimonides' own views, it can provide us with a way of updating them. Thus, in his important monograph And From There You Shall Seek, R. Soloveitchik argues that the first stage of the individual's search for God takes the form of a natural-cosmic encounter with Him. He describes this initial encounter with God as a rational religious experience, though, in truth, it derives not so much from man's rationality, but from a dynamic, powerful desire to sense the transcendent in the finite, from a quest for the presence of God in the world.... What the Kalam, Scholasticist or Aristotilian rishon thought they could get by proof was denied by the Kantian, neo-Kantian, Existentialist, and most later schools of philosophical though. And even if Kant were wrong, that would change the answer of how to justify belief, but not the answer about how to impart belief. The zeigeist of the world your hypotehtical talmid is immersed in is reflected by which schools of philosophy (to which I should add post-Modernism, although I don't think PM is compatible with any Orthodoxy, pace R Rashag) are currently dominant. The Kuzari itself prefigures Kant's objections, but Rihal's answer to the question of how to justify belief is mesorah. Which neither works for the BT or children of BT, or for many others in a world where few of those who descend from any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths still believe. The Rihal has the chaver (1:11) open with The Rabbi replied: I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles; who fed them in the desert and gave them the land, after having made them traverse the sea and the Jordan in a miraculous way; who sent Moses with His law, and subsequently thousands of prophets, who confirmed His law by promises to the observant, and threats to the disobedient. Our belief is comprised in the Torah -- a very large domain. To recast into the Ikkarim's 3 ikkarim, using Rosenzweig's buzzwords, the G-d of Revelation is the G-d of Creation. But emunah begins with Revelation. Which is how Hashem put it as well, in the first diberah; He defines Himself in terms of Yetzi'as Mitzaryim, not maaseh bereishis. The Existentialist focus on experience one hears in RYBS is more in concert with how people think today. We believe in the G-d of Shabbos, kashrus, taharas hamishpachah, the Author of the Torah that yeilds such beautiful lomdus, and the Torah and kelalei pesaq by which He gave them to us. To today's maamin, the G-d of Personal Redemption is logically first. And I would suggest that this is even true of nearly every maamin who thinks his reasons are more Scholastic / Maimonidean. The conscious arguments (proofs, as the Scholastist believes them to be) and their actual motivating justifications need not be the same. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 10:27:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 13:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> Message-ID: Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, not a lawyer. I think the Freddie Gray case is a good one in point of how a judge differs from a lawyer, and certainly from the masses. Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as much. KT, YGB On 8/10/2016 1:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > [snip] > And what he was saying is that it's a harder criterion. One not only > needs to have a valid justification (if not proof but a set of strong > arguments and/or personal experience) AND be something that will stand up > to today's knee-jerk cynicism. He emphasized that any justification that > doesn't stand up to critical thought will be subject to that cynicism, > since one needn't be clever to be able to find a rebuttal, likely with > all the sarcasm already provided, somewhere on line. > > So, for example, even if the misnamed Kuzari Principle were valid > justification, the fact is that for someone with a cell-phone, they wont' > accept it as such. There are enough rebuttals they coule find with a > few seconds of typing. > > To make R Berkovitz's point, it's irrelevent whether more than a cabal > actually did know about ma'amad Har Sinai in Ezra's day. It's only > whether someone can argue that it could have been, well enough to > defuse the KP's power to convince. > [snip] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 11:22:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 14:22:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> References: <20160809202520.GA10078@aishdas.org> <20160810171259.GA29615@aishdas.org> <20160810174221.GB9554@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160810182258.GE9554@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 01:27:06PM -0400, Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer wrote: : Of course one can google and go to Wikipedia and find rebuttals. At : that point, as RNW says, you (or your interlocutor) must be a judge, : not a lawyer... Yes, but RNW is playing lawyer for the emunah side, and he isn't allowing the interlocuter a layer for the kefirah side, nor to play one himself. A dayan cannot judge by only listening to one to'ein. : Rebuttals of the KP and ID are a dime a dozen and worth about as : much. This gets to the issue of proof vs evidence / strong argument. If you really want to present KP or ID, present them as arguments by pre-emptively acknowleding one could poke holes in either. A proof is all or nothing, which is why it's wrong to present arguments as proofs, and in the age of the cynical -- counterproductive. But as evidence.... It is valid to conclude that KP + ID + the beauty of a good devar Torah + ... are all most easily explained by positing Hashem's existence, to the point that the amount of evidence is a convincing inductive argument. Albeit not proof, but still beyond reasonable doubt. I still agree with R/Prof Shalom Carmy's 2007 post, though, in which he eschews the entire deductive philosophical approach to emunah, whether we speak of proof or of justification. Advocating the more experiential approach we just saw RLJK attribute to RYBS. Evidence as actual evidence, not as a description of an argument. RSC wrote in Avodah v7n87: > People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to > take for granted things that I don't. > The people who keep insisting that it's necessary to prove things about > G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising > these proofs is identical with knowing G-d. > Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I'd do, except > as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence. On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 11:06:46PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : And the Doros HaRishonim, Tekufas HaMikreh, brings proof texts from : Tanach for this in the eras of the Shoftim and Melachim. And I've : come across additional ones. For one, Eliyahu's challenge to Bnei : Yisroel to obey either the Baal or Hashem, and not both, as they had : been doing... But there was a Canaanite god named "El" (much as the Xian trinitarian god is also named "God"). And many of the locals accepted Y-HV-H as a name for their head god, but a name for a very pagan deity, someone with a wife and children. Use of the sheim havayah doesn't mean they were discussing the Borei. Even if Eliyahu haNavi got them to worship one G-d named Y..., it was only one step toward getting them to worship Hashem rather than some pagan father god superhuman pagan thingy. El as a pagan god was more common among the sinners of Malkhus Yisrael (Elihau's audience) and Kenaanim, sometimes identified with Baal. Y... as a pagan god was more common among Moav, Edom, the Keini (and since Yisro was himself Keini, that's a connetion to Moav), and the sinners of Malkhus Yehudah. (The the aforementioned potsherd written by someone who thought Bayis Rishon was dedicated to Asheirah's husband.) -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 13:53:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:53:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160810205314.GF9554@aishdas.org> The following article about the lack of explanation of biogenesis, something RYGB mentioned, literally *just* reached my facebook feed http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/10/its-easy-to-be-an-atheist-if-you-ignore-science "It's Easy to Be an Atheist if You Ignore Science", by R Moshe Averick. As you'll see below, this kind of thing isn't my mehalekh, but as a service for those for whom such things "work"... On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 12:52:44PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : from http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php : : Is intelligent design the same as creationism? : : No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically : detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually : all biologists is genuine design... The Argument from Design is not new, this is "just" its intersection with evolution and life. The problem is that there is no rigorous definition of "design". As long as design is a subjective "I know it when I see it", there is no way to objectively prove it is present. Or even to make an empirical argument (non-proof) for its presence. One can try to make a riogorous definition of design. The first attempt was useful form, as per the Rambam, Moseh 2:intro proposition 25 and 2:1: Each compound substance consists of matter and form, and requires an agent for its existence, viz., a force which sets the substance in motion, and thereby enables it to receive a certain form. The force which thus prepares the substance of a certain individual being, is called the immediate motor. But more scientifically, design as something you can measure... - The inverse of entropy. Problem is, over the full system, entropy always increases. Life means that there is more entropy in the air, etc... that more than compensates from the entropy being lost in evolution and living. In thermodynamics, entropy measures the number of microstates -- patterns of molecules -- that all appear to be the current macrostate. There are more ways to evenly mix molecules around the room than to arrange all of them in one corner of the room. - Of Informational (Shannon) Entropy -- the minimum number of bits necessary to describe a message, with lossless compression. For example, if one in general flipped a coin, but whenever there were two of the same in a row one picked the opposite, then a message of "HHT" only has two bits of information -- you don't need to send it in order for the receiver to put together the whole message. Adding compression and the notion that two different "messages" can contain the same information and thereby counting them as 1, not 2 microstates. - Of Chaitin's Algorithmic entropy / Kolmogorov complexity (lots of names, same thing) -- the amount of entropy in the description of an algorithm. Now we'll allow for compression that does lose information, as long as the resulting description is still enough to describe the same algorithm well enough for it to work. See a more detailed discussion at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/algorithmic.html And Dr Lee Spetner's (a famous Israeli proponent of Divinely guided evolution) use of the idea http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/spetner.html Here's the rub: Thermodynamic entropy always increases. Shannon information always decreases. But algorithmic complexity doesn't. Even if all use the word "entropy". E.g. see http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb01.html Not much different than Behe's mistake of talking about "Irreducible Complexity" -- all-or-nothing -- instead of talking about the absurdly low probability of such complexity arising without Divine Guidance. In a sense, this means that if this is the best we can do to define "design", ID is an indication of creation, not a proof. But R' Aqiva's argument appeals directly to experience and, I find, much more convincing. Medrash Tanchuma on "Bara E-loqim" (Bereishis 1:1): A heretic came to Rabbi Aqiva and asked, "Who made the universe?". Rabbi Aqiva answered, "Haqadosh barukh Hu". The heretic said, "Prove it to me." Rabbi Aqiva said, "Come to me tomorrow". When the heretic returned, Rabbi Aqiva asked, "What is that you are wearing?" "A garment", the unbeliever replied. "Who made it?" "A weaver." "Prove it to me." "What do you mean? How can I prove it to you? Here is the garment, how can you not know that a weaver made it?" Rabbi Akiva said, "And here is the world; how can you not know that HaQadosh barukh Hu made it?" After the heretic left, Rabbi Aqiva's students asked him, "But what is the proof?" He said, "Even as a house proclaims its builder, a garment its weaver or a door its carpenter, so does the world proclaim the Holy Blessed One Who created it. The Chovos haLvavos Shaar haYichud pereq 7: The analogy of this: When one sees a letter of uniform handwriting and writing style, one will immediately consider that one person wrote it because it is not possible that there was not at least one person. If it were possible that it could have been written with less than one person, we would consider this possibility. And even though it is possible that it was written by more than one person, it is not proper to consider this, unless there is evidence which testifies to this, such as different handwriting style in part of the letter or the like. Once we are talking about artument rather than proof, I find the direct appeal to experience more compelling than arguing over elaborately designed arguments, their postulates, and resulting air-tightness. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 10 22:49:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 01:49:00 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] kiruv cholent [was: how do you teach emuna?] Message-ID: From: Micha Berger via Avodah _avodah at lists.aishdas.org_ (mailto:avodah at lists.aishdas.org) >> It's a first-hand experience we can't simply share with others, and with those who go OTD, we obviously didn't do so well enough to justify the personal cost to keep on observing.... And the same psychology of those who go OTD comes to play among those who become BTs. Experience, emotions, and the threshold of personal cost. This is the reason for those cynical comments about kiruv being more about chulent than talmud Torah. Hopefully you haven't heard them. But that's the seed of truth. >>>>> It's not "cynical" to say that inviting someone for a Shabbos meal can be an effective way -- maybe the most effective way -- to introduce someone to Torah. It goes back to the Gemara, I believe: "Tavlin yesh ushemo Shabbos." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 01:30:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:30:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi Message-ID: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> R' Eli Turkel wrote: Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will rule over Judea. Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy the Babylonian empire. I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the navi sheker. However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate My 2 cents: As a rule, nevi'ei emet generally told people things they did not want to hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone, especially the powers that be, comfortable. Case in point: Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22): First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections welcome.) Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem. Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and never says anything good. (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects are almost comical.) I've been asked the same question by many students over the years: How could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they had nevi'im? The subtext is something like: We, nebbach, don't have access to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc. The short answer is something like what R' Eli has said: Where there are true prophets (the real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the comfortable lie). (Sorry, just noticed the pun.) Determining what is genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection. The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact that there was also, as always, behira hofshit. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 06:29:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 13:29:16 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Life saving vs. Torah Learning? Message-ID: From R' Aviner CPR Course Q: What is preferable - a CPR course or learning Torah during that time? A: Learning Torah, which resuscitates the soul. Learning Torah is equal to them all. Ha-Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote that while it is a Mitzvah to save people, there is no Mitzvah to study medicine (In his Teshuvah on whether or not it is permissible for a Cohain to study medicine. Shut Igrot Moshe, Yoreh Deah 2:155). Interesting use of word preferable vs required/forbidden. What "dvar reshut" (if you believe it exists) would ever be preferable to torah learning? jShe-nir'eh et nehamat Yerushalayim u-binyanah bi-mherah ve-yamenu, Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 03:46:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:46:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Antidote for Baseless Hatred Message-ID: <20160811104649.GA6030@aishdas.org> Part 2 by Rebbetzin Heller posted to Bayond BT. This part really spoke to me, so I am sharing here. H/T R' Mark Frankel (CCed) http://www.beyondbt.com/2016/08/10/antidote-for-baseless-hatred-part-2-loving-your-fellow-jew/ As I always said, we should be making up bracelets: WWRALD -- What would R' Aryeh Levine do? (Gushnikim could wear them with their own kavanos.) -Micha Antidote for Baseless Hatred - Part 2 - Loving Your Fellow Jew By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller Loving Your Fellow Jew Now I want to share a completely different idea that relates to the issue of truth. The Torah tells us that in addition to loving truth, searching for truth, and promoting truth, we have to love each other. This should be no problem, of course, because everyone is pro-ahavat Yisrael (loving one's fellow Jew). The problem is, being pro-ahavat Yisrael doesn't necessarily mean you do ahavat Yisrael. This is because most of us don't know the laws of how to love our fellow Jew. One big difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Judaism has halacha. "Halacha" comes from the verb lalechet, to go or walk. You want to reach a certain goal? Here are the steps you have to take. There are three laws of ahavat Yisrael. The first is that you have to speak well of your fellow Jew--not just not speak ill of him. And what you say has to be true. This means you must choose to focus on what's true and good in him. You don't have to mention his name. But you have to have a reason to say what you're saying. It may feel artificial at first. But when you speak well of someone, you subconsciously align yourself with him, so with time it will feel increasingly natural. Obviously, you have to be intelligent about whom you speak well of and to whom. The following, for example, will not work: "How fortunate you are that your mother-in-law moved in with you! I've always found her to be a font of constructive advice and criticism..." You have to be smart enough to anticipate the reaction, and make sure your praise doesn't do more harm than good. The second law of ahavat Yisrael is that you have to be concerned with your fellow Jew's physical needs. This doesn't mean giving tzedakah ("charity")--that's a different mitzvah. It means that if you see she is hot, open the window. If you see an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, don't say, "Boy, it's a shame they don't deliver after four." Help her. Being physically helpful reminds us that we all belong to one club: the club of the "mortals". When you notice another's needs, you become aware that she is not so different from you. You both get hot. You both need help carrying heavy things. In Israel, when tragedy strikes, calls are put out on the emergency network for all volunteers to come to the hospitals. Most volunteers are young, religiously affiliated women ages 18 to 25. They often have nothing practical in common with the victims, many of whom are not religious, older, or younger. But they find themselves becoming part of the people whom they help. In one terror attack, a whole family was injured, but the children recovered before the parents. Fortunately, neighbors were happy to take them for a while. The problem is, the neighbors were Ashkenazim and the children, who were Sefardim, didn't like their food. Picture an 11-year-old Moroccan boy bursting into tears when he sees the gefilte fish. The next day a young American volunteer came to me asking, "Do you know anyone who knows how to make couscous?" As different as those children were from her, she became bonded to them through caring for their physical needs. Speaking well of your fellow Jews and being concerned with their physical well-being are relatively easy. The third law of ahavat Yisrael is the hard one: You have to honor them. Here's where the "truth" problem raises its head: How can I honor people I disagree with? The answer is: You can honor them because they're human. You can honor them because they're real. You can honor them because of the good you see within them. Reb Aryeh Levin A person outstanding in this was Reb Aryeh Levin, who lived in Jerusalem during the British Mandate. He was well-known and loved for the honor he showed every individual. Despite this and his tremendous piety, some people in the community disagreed strongly with him. They felt his tolerance of and compromise with the secular Zionists would ultimately erode religious observance. In the 1920s, Reb Aryeh became the self-appointed "rabbi of the prisons." He visited and talked with all kinds of criminals. And they loved him. As time went on, the prisons became full of those the British had imprisoned for Zionist activities. They too loved him. Why did they love him? There's a phrase in Mishlei (Proverbs): "One face is the reflection of another face in the water." You know how this works with babies. Smile at a baby of a few weeks old, and what does it do? It smiles back. It's not much different with adults. Once, Reb Aryeh daughter became ill. The diagnosis wasn't clear and treatment was poor. Things didn't look good. Reb Aryeh came to the prison on Shabbat as he always did to lead the religious service, and at kriyat haTorah (the Torah reading), he stopped as usual and asked, "Does anyone have anyone they want to pray for?" One of the prisoners said, "Yes--we want to pray for the rabbi's daughter." The prisoner began reciting the misheberach, a prayer ending with a pledge to donate tzedakah on behalf of the person one is praying for. The prisoner stopped. He said, "I don't have money. None of us do. I want to donate time." He offered a month of his life. The other prisoners followed suit. And they were real. They meant it. They loved him. And that's because he loved them. Another famous rabbi in Jerusalem was Rav Amram Blau, a leader of the old, religious yishuv (settlement) community and founder of the Neturei Karta, "Guardians of the Gates." Rav Blau believed strongly that any inroads of secular Zionism would be the ruin of the yishuv. He would therefore go to extremes in protesting desecration of the Shabbat. He would lie down in the street in the ultra-religious neighborhoods of Geula and Me'ah She'arim and not let traffic go. (The policemen got to know him. They even came to his funeral, where they cried like children because they understood his sincerity.) For his activities, he was imprisoned. And there was a problem: The prison food wasn't kosher enough for him, so he wouldn't eat it. The police wouldn't let anyone from his community bring him food. The people didn't know what to do. Finally, they approached Reb Aryeh and said, "You go to the prison every day. Bring him something." So Reb Aryeh put some food in his jacket pockets and went. When Reb Aryeh got to Rav Blau's cell, Rav Blau, instead of gratefully taking the food and thanking him, turned his back. "I don't want to look at you," he told Reb Aryeh. "You sympathize with the Zionists." 99 people out of 100 would have told Rav Blau what they thought of him, taken the food, and gone. But Reb Aryeh put the food down and quietly left. Uncharacteristically, Reb Aryeh mentioned this to someone. The man was very indignant. "What is this? And he calls himself religious?" Reb Aryeh responded, "Don't you understand? He wasn't going to be friendly just because I brought him food. He's so principled." If you want to see the good in another, you can see it, and bond. If you don't want to see it, you won't, and you won't bond. At one point the British sentenced some people to death. Reb Aryeh actually lay down in front of the British high commissioner's car to protest. That he was pleading for the life of someone he didn't necessarily agree with wasn't relevant to him. So if you want to love your fellow Jew, you have to learn to find what's good in him, articulate it, and not be threatened by it. This can be hard. We say, "Of course I like people. There are just some people I feel closer to than others. For instance, I like people from a cultural background similar to my own." That eliminates 95% of the population. "And my own age group. I just don't have what to say to teenagers or old people." It finally comes down to, "I like people on the same level of religiosity as I and who share my interests..." Meaning, when I look at somebody else, who am I really looking for? Me. Why? Because I know the truth. Remember that problem? Self-Expansion Loving others forces you to become a little bit bigger. Years ago, an American friend of mine made aliyah and moved into a rental apartment in Geula. I asked her how it was. She said, "Israel is great, but we're going to have to find another place to live." I asked, "What's wrong with the apartment?" She said, "It's not the apartment, it's the neighbors." So I asked her--you're not supposed to do this, by the way, because it's like an invitation to speak lashon hara (derogatory or potentially harmful speech)--"What's so terrible about the neighbors?" She said, "Nothing. But I feel like I live alone in the building. They're all over 70. They don't read. I have nothing in common with them." Shortly thereafter she left and someone else I knew moved into the apartment. I asked her how she liked it. "I love it," she said. "Really?" I asked. "The apartment's so nice?" She replied, "The apartment's okay--what's wonderful is the neighbors!" I asked, "Oh, did new people move in?" "No," she said. "They're elderly Persians who've been living there forever." I was curious to know why she liked them so much. She told me that across the hall lives an elderly widow. One day she saw her heading down the stairs with a little grocery basket. She asked her, "You're going to the grocery? What do you need?" The old lady said, "I'm just getting a bag of rice." My friend said, "Why should you have to go down and up four flights for a bag of rice? I'll get it for you and you can pay me back." Later that afternoon there was a knock on the door. The old lady was there with a plate of cooked rice. My friend looked at it and said, "You know, my rice doesn't turn out like this." In America, everybody buys Uncle Ben's, and it takes effort to ruin Uncle Ben's. But Israeli rice is real rice--you know, it grows in marshes, it's real. So the lady said, "Come, I'll show you how to make rice." They went into her apartment, and she took out an ancient pot make of thick metal. She said, "First, you put a little oil on the bottom. Then you put in one noodle. When the noodle turns yellow, put in the cup of rice. Then you put in water that's already boiling, and the salt. You cook it. When it's done, you turn off the flame, and put a towel on it." So my friend tried it. And lo and behold, it wasn't one of those times when her husband would come home, look at the rice, and ask, "What's for dinner?" Her rice looked like rice. So she brought some of the rice to the old lady and said, "See, it came out good!" Which led to the old lady taking out her photograph album--and my friend got to see a whole other world: professional photographs taken in Persia, and then later in Israel in the `20s. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to her since she came. That led to them invite the old lady for kiddush on Shabbat morning. Which in turn led her to introduce them to her grandson when he was home from the army, which was their first experience talking to a real, live, native-born Israeli (since English speakers tend to form their own little ghettos). My friend concluded, "If I didn't live in this building, I'd be in my own little world. This lady expanded my universe." That's how we have to learn to feel about people who are different from us. So let me review. We dislike each other for two reasons: One, we love truth and tend to not believe that other people could have it if their spark of truth is different from our own. Two, we are threatened by other people's differences, and are often unwilling to expand ourselves. If you want to get past these two limitations, you must learn to speak well about, care materially for, and give honor to your fellow Jew. Suppose you say to yourself, "Self, this is nice, but it's too hard. Reb Aryeh Levin is a great guy to read about, but I'm not him. Personally, I like speaking ill of people I don't like, devoting my time and efforts to my own physical well-being, and validating my own views. Why should I be different?" I'll give you some motivation. The most severe sin of all is idol worship. Remember how Avraham (Abraham) broke his father's idols? (I have to say: As I get older, I feel more and more empathy for Avraham's father. You know: "I leave the store for fifteen lousy minutes..." Or how other parents might see it: "There he goes, my ultra-religious son!") The fact is, if you don't expand yourself, you end up worshiping yourself--and that's the most damaging form of all idol worship. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 12:07:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 22:07:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: To echo some of Micah's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design. The basic idea of the proof is that we use information about physical beings or events to teach us something about non-physical beings or events. Modern philosophy rejects any such attempts. There is an interesting book "Strictly Kosher Reading" by Yoel Finkelman that devotes a chapter to modern popular charedi theology. He shows hoe they try to avoid philosophy and base themselves only scientific fact. In the end they ignore Jewish philosophy and all arguments against their case. If these proofs are so strong they must defend why intelligent atheists don't accept these proofs. Basically because everyone else is irrational and only we are rational. Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to reason for himself. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 11 13:04:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 16:04:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f0072e6-1a96-70db-6b37-2933df4e92f4@aishdas.org> On 8/11/2016 3:07 PM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and > intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore > everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to > reason for himself. Where is this Rav Dessler? KT, YGB From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 01:38:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:38:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] chiddush on tisha ba-av Message-ID: Summary of a shiur by Rav Algazi that I heard today. As usual a short summary does not do justice to the shiur Gemara Megillah 5a Rebbi tried to uproot (la-akor) and they didn't agree with him (lo hodu lo). Tosafot is disturbed how Rebbe could do such a thing and gives 2 answers 1) He wanted to reduce tisha ba-av to the level of the other fast days 2) He wanted to move the fast to the 10th of Av See also Ritva on this gemara that discusses this in more detail Problem: The gemara uses the word uproot and it doesn't seem to imply some small change. R Algazi's answer ( explaining simple pshat not tosafot/Ritva) 1) Rambam says that a bet din can override a previous bet din if it is based on interpreting pesukim but not for gezerot. 2) Rambam holds that Jerusalem and bet hamikdash have their kedusha forever because the schechinah is always there even after the churban (Raavad disagrees) 3) Yevamot 79b Rebbe says that the monetary portion of the Netinim (Givonim) is over with the churban but not the religious part (chelek mizbeach) So R Algazi claims that Rebbe holds like the Rambam (anachronistic) that even after the Churban the place of the mikdash retains its holiness and in principle we can continue to bring korbanot. Hence, even with the destruction of the Temple not everything is destroyed and hence we have no need for Tisha Ba-av as the schechinah is still resting there. Since this is based on his interpretaion of pesukim Rebbe could disagree with a previous psak of the Sanhedrin Of course we don't pasken like Rebbe (lo hodu lo) -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 06:50:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: <1471009798032.51328@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? A. Normally, all restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days remain in place until the tenth of Av at Chatzos (midday) because the Bais Hamikdash continued to be engulfed in flames on the tenth of Av (Rama OC 558:1). This year, since the ninth of Av falls on Shabbos when we may not fast, the fast of Tisha B'Av is postponed to Sunday, the tenth of Av. Sunday evening is the 11th of Av and therefore, the restrictions against taking haircuts, shaving, doing laundry, bathing, swimming, saying Shehecheyanu and sewing are lifted immediately at the end of the fast without waiting until the next day (Mishna Berura 558:4). Nonetheless, eating meat and drinking wine (which are foods used for celebrations) are only permitted Monday morning after the fast this year, but may not be consumed Sunday evening. Since the day was spent in mourning, it is not proper to resume conduct of simcha (joy) by eating meat and drinking wine immediately after the fast is over (Rama ibid). It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is permitted right after the fast is over. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 10:53:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 13:53:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something relevant. See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS or and subsequent subjects. So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is certainly not kesivah." Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas sefer Torah, would be a problem. -Micha -- Micha Berger Zion will be redeemed through justice, micha at aishdas.org and her returnees, through righteousness. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 12 14:07:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 12/08/16 13:53, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > AhS YD 271:39 . That URL should be http://j.mp2/aQI4EP -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 13:46:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:46:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 8:53 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > Revisiting a topic from 13-1/2 years ago because AhS Yomi got to something > relevant. > > See http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=S#SILK%20 > SCREEN%20TORAH%20SCROLLS:SCROLLS > or and subsequent subjects. > > So, here's the "new" data point -- AhS YD 271:39 . > RYME opens the se'if citing the Taz, MA, and Bash that printing is just > like kesivah, and Chavos Ya'ir, Benei Yonah and Rashdam against. > > His own position is that the old style printing press, which was a real > press (mental image: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice screwing down a > block onto the page) is "kekeisah mamash", as long as the ink is kosher. > However, nowadays, "with a machine that rolls the paper on the letters, > and the machine runs on its own without a person moving it, this is > certainly not kesivah." > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. After looking inside, I'm not so sure. RYME lists three characteristics of old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page from the letters. He doesn't explicitly say that all three stages are necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 15:42:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160814224247.GA18163@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:46:41PM +0300, Simon Montagu wrote: : RYME lists three characteristics of : old-fashioned printing which make it like ketiva mamash: the letters are : set in the page; all the letters of the page are spread with ink; and then : the paper is pressed on the page and the ink gets transferred to the page : from the letters... Are you sure his intent is to make those more like kesivah? He is simply describing what printing is. After all, in kesivah with a quill or reed you don't have pre-set letters all being transferred to the kelaf at once. : necessary for it to be considered ketiva, but it seems to be implied that : every letter needs to be processed individually with kavvana likdusha, : which IIUC is not the case at any stage of silk screen printing. With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Your problem would appear to apply MORE to printing than silk-screening. Even after reading your post, silk-screening seems to be a lo kol shekein to someone who would allow a hand-printed seifer Torah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors, micha at aishdas.org but only some of us have the script. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Menachem Nissel Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 17:33:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2016 20:33:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Six Seasons Message-ID: <20160815003346.GA9932@aishdas.org> We have discussed the slippage of chodesh haAviv in the past, that there are years in the 19 year ibur cycle in which Pesach is no longer in the 1st month of spring. Like this year. In these discussions, I mentioned more than once my question about whether the calendar actually fails when Aviv slips into summer, the third month after the equinox, would slipping only 2 months constitute a failure. After all, Chazal understand Bereishis 8:22 (descriving the restoration of the world after the mabul) as describing 6 seasons, "zera veqatzir veqor vachom veqayitz vechoref". Just happened across something about Indian culture. It seems their norm is to divide the year into 6 seasons. Different parts of India have slightly different sets of 6 seasons -- and climates, so that makes sense, but the choice of sixths rather than quarters seems an artifact of the same view of the year that Chazal were recording. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:58:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Efraim Yawitz via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:58:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Micha Berger wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 05:35:14PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz wrote: >>> : In short, do you really believe that Yoshiahu and Ezra were convincing >>> : people about the origin of the Jewish people... >>> : If so, what did convince them? If that's what you think, then I >>> : guess the whole thing really is a scam. >>> >>> You're all-or-nothing-ing it. But I do believe that a small core of >>> maaminim had to convince the masses that the Torah we have was dictated to >>> Moshe (+/- a few pesuqim at the end) by G-d, that *everyone* experienced >>> the 10 commandments, and other core beliefs that the Kuzari Principle >>> would say it is impossible for them to do so. You are conveniently changing the subject. I mentioned "the origin of the Jewish people" and you are writing something about belief "that the Torah we have was dictated to Moshe", etc. My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 03:05:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 06:05:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. Is that really the case when silk screening? I really don't know much about that process, but the word "roll" gives me the impression that it goes from the top of the page to the bottom. If so, then although you don't have the entire amud being made at once, you *would* have an entire line being made at once, which is *not* creating "the letters in order". Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 14 19:02:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:02:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: Science, by its own definition, never proves anything. It can only disprove. A million people can drop things and measure their acceleration, we can launch vehicles into outer space, all based upon Newtonian physics, in spite of it being incorrect. And they knew all along that it was incorrect. So we can prove things wrong with one observation but cannot prove it correct with a million confirmations. Science is about postulates. Many are possible but the most elegant is accepted as the working hypothesis, Occam's Razor. And as we have seen, remains in place sometimes even if we know it is incorrect. If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - when the scietists finally confront Gd saying we have discovered how to create life, you just take a bit of dirt and put it into a test-tube ... they will be interrupted by Gd saying, that's MY dirt, you guys go get some of your own A bar-mitzvah boy and bas mitzvah girl are commanded to know Gd. Can they be expected to know what the great philosophers have not been able to resolve? Of course they can, because they do not have a contaminated mind. And I mean contaminated by Negios. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 02:59:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:59:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] When do all the restrictions of the Three Weeks and the Nine Days end this year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis > It is questionable whether we can play and listen to music > Sunday evening, this year. Is music, which is used for > simcha, treated like meat and wine, which are restricted at > night and not permitted until the morning? Or do we consider > music as less significant, and it is permitted immediately > after the fast, similar to haircuts, laundry and bathing? > (See Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim p. 32:3 who prohibits > and the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos p. 154-155 who > permits). Rav Schachter, shlit"a paskened that when Tisha > B'Av is postponed, playing or listening to music is > permitted right after the fast is over. These answers would be much more meaningful if we were told how these poskim feel about someone getting married on Sunday night. Can I presume that Kitzur Hilchos Bein HaMetzarim says not to? And I'd like to know what the sefer Pesach V'Tisha B'Av B'Shabbos, and Rav Schachter, say. Perhaps they allow such weddings, And music is a kal vachomer. But perhaps they do not allow such weddings, and they are drawing a line between the great simcha and clear status of a wedding, vs. the barely-mentioned-in-Shulchan-Aruch status of music. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 09:12:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:12:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question Message-ID: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it) He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiating discounts with the car rental agency The friend asked me if it is mutar (ie not genavas daas or genavas mammon) I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use other discount codes (probably bc the car rental agency wins as they w rather have him rent their cars even with the discount than have him rent from their competitors) Or 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their Enterprise agreement. Ie its unlikely you have to have a pinched hat to qualify. Do you have pay chabad dues? Is it enough that you're a rabbi? I don't know if either of the 2 above are true (I suspect so, but am unsure). Does anyone know if either of the 2 above are true? Mordechai Cohen mcohen at touchlogic.com ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ =======

A chabad rabbi gave a friend Chabad's corporate car rental discount code (and told him to feel free to use it)

He said that chabad doesn't mind, bc the more that use it, the more clout Chabad has when negotiat ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 11:32:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 14:32:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815183222.GA27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:58:21PM +0300, Efraim Yawitz via Avodah wrote: : My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is : only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I : see nowhere in Tanach that at any point It is about a specific historical claim.... national revelation. Which is also one specific of religious belief. R Moshe ben Chaim (mesora.org) argued that rejecting the validity of the KP as a proof is a rejection of Devarim 4:9-10. That our emunah in Toras Moshe and Yetzi'as Mitzrayim *must* be founded on the KP. If one does not believe in or even know about the idea of Torah miSinai, they cannot possibly believe in or not about the events of its revelation -- said historical event. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Good decisions come from experience; micha at aishdas.org Experience comes from bad decisions. http://www.aishdas.org - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:04:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:04:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> Message-ID: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 12:12:54PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: : I answered that its mutar if either of the following are true.. : 1. The car rental agency is not makpid if pple that are not members use : other discount codes... I am not sure this is sufficient to make it mutar. You would need to know that he is not only "not makpid" but even stands to gain. "Zakhin le'adam". So you would need to talk to the relevant car rental agent. But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. Onaas devarim includes selling non-kosher meat to a non-Jew who will assume it's kosher. Even if it has the same value to the purchaser. : Or : 2. The Chabad's corporate discount w apply according to their : Enterprise agreement. I have a feeling the agreement is informal, so, likely after talking to him he would be fine with it. There is no formal Chabad corporate entity. Alternatively, there is a specific corporate entity that happens to be Chabad-related that actually has the agreeement, and any other Chabadnikim using the discount are also stretching the agreement. But as I said, I think it's more likely there is just something informal in place. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Weeds are flowers too micha at aishdas.org once you get to know them. http://www.aishdas.org - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:19:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:19:02 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim is Yehudi or nakhri. I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell they would certainly have allowed it. Similar to asking a policeman if I can drive 3-8 m/hr over the limit - he might have to answer that you can't, even though the reality is that it is actually ok. It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you want to use. mc ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 13:36:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:36:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] car rental corporate discount code question In-Reply-To: <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> References: <071e01d1f70f$e166b5f0$a43421d0$@com> <20160815190432.GB27152@aishdas.org> <079701d1f729$e2430d60$a6c92820$@com> Message-ID: <20160815203615.GD27152@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 03:19:02PM -0400, M Cohen via Avodah wrote: :> ..But you have to be up-front that you are not a member anyway. Geneivas :> da'as / "midevar sheqer tirchaq" is assur regardless of whether the victim :> is Yehudi or nakhri. : : I'm not so sure about that its Geneivas da'as. If upfront, the clerk might : have to say no (for policy reasons), even though if don't ask/don't tell : they would certainly have allowed it. As I mentioned about selling tereif food to a non-Jew, even if there is no difference in value or price -- lying is assur regardless of any fiscal impact. : It's not midevar sheqer tirchaq, you are just stating that this is code you : want to use. Are you leaving it implied that you're a chabadnik when you aren't? (For reasons other than mipenei hashalom, mesechet, puraya or ushpiza?) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns micha at aishdas.org G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four http://www.aishdas.org corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets Fax: (270) 514-1507 to include himself. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:13:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:13:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <45811514.14167355.1470838757018.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160815211328.GG27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 02:19:16PM +0000, Harry Maryles via Avodah wrote: : They will then challenge that idea by asking 'Who created God?' ad : infinitum, thus believing they have refuted the 'first cause' : premise. They somehow do not understand the concept of 'First cause'. By : definition, the 'creation buck' stops there! The Creator' needs no : creator because He has always existed. difficult to understand but no : less difficult than saying the universe has always existed. I think you are making a mistake with your "He has always existed". That gives G-d an age of infinity. Within time, albeit within all of it. Hashem is lemaalah min hazeman. He has no beginning and no end in time because He has no first-hand time. And that answers their question. Hashem is not First Cause in the sense of beginning at the beginning of the chain of causes. That would put Him within time, albeit somehow before the first moment of the universe and its time. Hashem is First Cause because He caused the chain as a whole, in a manner unrelated to the causal linkage within the chain of time. Not only the first link in the chain alone, like some Deistic view of creation. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:03:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:03:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> References: <73b9c360-581c-d1ff-077e-75b49318b229@gmail.com> <20160801211946.GD5237@aishdas.org> <88ae791b-6528-58c7-3098-86657b46be45@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160815210312.GE27152@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 11:15:29AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 8/1/2016 5:19 PM, Micha Berger wrote: : >I am unclear how the Rambam gets this peshat in the mishnah. : >Edios 1:4 says the motive for mentioning both shitos in machloqesin : >between batei Hillel veShammah is "to teach future generations, so that : >a person does not stand on his words. For even the avos holam did not : >stand on their words." : >To teach middos, that others learn for Beis Shammai's (and occasionally : >BH's) example about how to lose a machloqes. Middos without which the : >kelalei pesaq wouldn't work. : First, to clarify, the mishna's question is why the previous mishna(s) : mention(s) the opinions of Shammai and Hillel (not Beis Shammai and Beis : Hillel) *l'batala/l'vatlan,* i.e. when they only to go on to report that : both opinions were ultimately rejected by the Sages. I thought 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is applied across the board. And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the rabbim outvoted him. I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. ... : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. What makes them abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : >The Rambam's desire to avoid that fuzziness derives from his uniquely : >Accumulative approach to halakhah. The majority of rishonim believe : >that halakhah is Constitutive. IOW, the Rambam believes correct pesaq : >is discovered by the poseiq, whereas the dominant position is that it is : >invented. To the inventor, other positions are pieces that go into : >the construction. To the discoverer, they are wild geese to chase. : "Invention" is an ill-chosen word, although if it is to be used at all : it would apply to the Rambam's explanation of a Besi Din Gadol's ability : to re-evaluate the meaning of pesukim... Yeah, but I am talking about pesaq in existing halakhah, not the creation of new ones. Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. The Rambam (and RMF in the haqdamah but contradicted elsewhere in a few teshuvos) says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found to be wrong in an objective sens. But then, we've discussed RMHalbertal's position repeatedly already http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf R/Prof Ephraim Karnefogel gives more examples at http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:26:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:26:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] true navi/false navi In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f3aa$a4f785d0$eee69170$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <20160815212626.GH27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:30:29AM +0300, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: : First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means : that they rehearsed it. (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat. Or maybe : it is 'lashon ehad'. I may not have the exact lashon here. Corrections : welcome.) I think you were tripped up because you were thinking in Hebrew. So it was easier for a chutznik like myself. The word you were looking for entered Aramaic (and view this pitgam, modern Hebrew) from Greek: signum (Gr) -> signon (Ar). Sanhedrin 89a (making your very point: medeq'amrei kulhu kehadaderi -- shema minah lo kelum qa'amrei): De'ama Rabbi Yitzchaq: Signon echad oleh lekamah nevi'im ve'ein sheni nevi'im misnbe'im besignon echad. As an example, R Yitzchaq compares Ovadia 1:3 "zedon lib'kha hisiekha" to Yirmiyahu 49:16 "hisi osakh zedon libekha". Both saying roughly the same thing to Edom, but with different word order -- and thus emphasis. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life is complex. micha at aishdas.org Decisions are complex. http://www.aishdas.org The Torah is complex. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - R' Binyamin Hecht From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 12:56:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Minchas N'sachim In-Reply-To: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> References: <20160728155723.TZAU18419.fed1rmfepo201.cox.net@fed1rmimpo109.cox.net> Message-ID: <20160815195646.GC27152@aishdas.org> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:57:17AM -0400, Sholom Simon wrote: : Why does the torah tell us -- so many times -- that the minchas : n'sachim contains 3 issaron of flour per par; 2 issaron per ayil, : and 1 issaron per keves. : : L'chora, it seems a bit redundant, no? The oil and wine too: Baqar: 1/2 hin (6 lug) wine and oil, 3 esronim (.3 eifah) soles Ayil: 1/3 hin (4 lug) wine and oil, and 2 esronim (.2 eifah) soles Keves: 1/4 hin (3 lug) wine and oil, 1 isaron (.1 eifah) soles Owf for the chatas and asham of a metzorah are the only ones that get nesachim and minchah (Menachos 91a-b), but I couldn't see where the gemara discusses how much! : I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question! : Does anybody have any insights? It am chiming in to let the chevrah know that I tried hard, but have to throw in the towel. I couldn't find anyone discussing why the nesachim are listed per qorban rather than per species of animal in the qorban. Here's a homiletic take: The Ramban says that the repetition of the gifts of each nasi (as the end of Naso) even though their contents were apparently identical is because each nasi actually had entirely different kavanos, relating teh silver tray speifically to their sheivet's experience, the bowl is so meaningful for them to give, their soles belulah bashemen... So that each qorban is listed separately because each qorban was unique, even if the physical items in it were identical. A lesson that kavanah matters. Applying it here seems straightforward. Yes, ever par gets the same 3 esronim, 1/2 hin and 1/2 hin. But perhaps in each case it evokes something different? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 14:05:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 17:05:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] birchat kohanim - tenai based on which shitah is right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160815210553.GF27152@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 07, 2016 at 12:53:56PM -0400, Jacob Trachtman via Avodah wrote: : I know the poskim use tenaim like that sometimes but I don't understand : how it works. What is the objective reality that decides the tenai? Since : the Torah is *lo bashamayim *is there an objectively right answer (e.g. as : to whether it is appropriate to say hallel) or is the right answer based on : the hachraah of a posek? Or, both answers are right in superposition, since there is no pesaq, and therefore my act has two meanings, in superposition. After all, my kavanah is one of "maybe", which is itself being willing to entertain both sides. This notion of two coexisting valid intepretations of my act actually fits my state of mind when doing it? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Life isn't about finding yourself micha at aishdas.org Life is about creating yourself. http://www.aishdas.org - Bernard Shaw Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 15 18:47:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (jay via Avodah) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:47:51 -0600 (CDT) Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: from "via Avodah" at Aug 14, 2016 06:09:20 pm Message-ID: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Yesterday I observed the fast of Av in a Sefardi synagog, for the first time in my life, and I was surprised to hear the shliax tsibbur say "ligyonim" during the repetition of the afternoon Amida. I checked the other Sefardi prayer books in the synagog, not just the one used by the shliax tsibbur, and they all said ligyonim. My own prayer book, used by Ashkenazi xasidim, said "ligyonoth", as did the one Lubavitcher prayer book in the synagog. There were no authentic Ashkenazi prayer books there but this morning I looked up an Ashkenazi prayer book on-line and it also said ligyonoth. How do you pluralize a Latin word in Hebrew? If Hebrew were a language like English, the foreign plural would be retained, which is why we have graffiti and agenda, but in Hebrew foreign words always inflect according to the rules of Hebrew (with rare and subtle exceptions -- Hebrew words with five consonants, like sha`atnez and tsfardea` and tarngol, are obviously of foreign origin, and tsfardea` inflects peculiarly in Exodus: the first letter of the word, in all of its forms, never takes a dagesh xazaq when preceded by the definite article, which Ya`aqov Kamenetsky attributes to its foreign origin, unfortunately he has no similarly satisfying explanation for leviim). Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth and sh`onoth and xalonoth. A native speaker of Hebrew, guided by his language sense, would say ligyonoth without thinking; a non-native speaker would consult the rule and say ligyonim. What makes this interesting is that the conventional wisdom, at last on this mailing list, is that Ashkenazim come from Israel (or, more precisely, Palestine) and that Sefardim come from Babylon. It seems to me that you could get to Spain more easily from Israel than from Babylon, and you wouldn't have to cross political boundaries, but that's what people say. We do know that our ancestors spoke Hebrew much longer in Israel than they did in Babylon, until it was supplanted by Aramaic, and even after it was, hillbillies and other people lacking formal education, like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi's maidservant, continued to use Hebrew words here and there, just as the English spoken in Texas by the common people has more Spanish in it than the English spoken in New York, compare the language used in O. Henry stories set in the two locations. In the tiny difference, a matter of two letters, in the pluralization of a foreign word, we have additional evidence in support of the counterintuitive hypothesis that Ashkenazim are from Palestine and Sefardim are from Babylon. Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter 6424 N Whipple St Chicago IL 60645-4111 (1-773)7613784 landline (1-410)9964737 GoogleVoice jay at m5.chicago.il.us http://m5.chicago.il.us "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 05:34:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:34:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi wrote: >>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning somewhere - ... I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not invite such questions to begin with. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 06:51:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:51:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] [via Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 07:07:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 10:07:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73015039-df3b-42a7-5534-743fa032296c@sero.name> On 16/08/16 08:34, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: >>>> If the question - does Gd exist?, were approached using the >>>> scientific approach, there is no question that the most elegant >>>> postulate is, Gd must exist because there must be a beginning >>>> somewhere - ... > > I disagree. This approach invites the question, "If there must have > been a beginning somewhere, then where was Gd's beginning?" The whole point of the argument is that everything we observe is the kind of thing that needs to be caused by something else, and that thing too, if it is of the same nature as the things we observe, must have been caused by something, and so ad infinitum. Therefore there must exist, somewhere, a different kind of entity, an entity whose nature *doesn't* require a cause. It can't be like anything we know, it must be of a completely different order of existence, and it caused the first thing of the conventional kind, which in turn caused all the other things. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 12:43:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 15:43:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Micha Berger via Avodah Micha Berger wrote: > I thought [mishnayos Eidios] 1:4-5 were giving general rules, not specific to understanding > the machloqes in 1:3. After all, gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan is > applied across the board. 1-3, the three mishnayos that mention Shammai's and Hillel's shittos and then states that both were rejected by the Chachamim, don't give any general rules at all. The 4th mishna questions why those rejected opinions are recorded. And the answer is that vetted testimony trumps even the greatest of sages. ''Gadol mimmenu beChochma u-b'minyan'' only enters the picture in mishna 5, which deals with an individual sage opposing a majority, and questions why his opinion is recorded. This indeed characterizes many other mishnayos, and the lesson the answer teaches is that at that point the matter was not yet put to a final vote, and the individual may still convince the majority, and vote that way. If that does happen, a later Beis Din may revert to the original majority opinion, but only if they are greater than the former Beis Din beChochma u-b'minyan. This is indeed a general rule that applies to many mishnayos. > And doesn't 1:6 explicitly move the yachid > verabbim discussion into all cases, "For if someone says 'this is what > i reveived', it could be said to him 'you heard like Ploni'" but the > rabbim outvoted him. Yes, this particular mishna moves the discussion to a phenomenon seen in many mishnayos, but a different one. Mishna 6 asks: But what about those instances in which the individual never succeeded in convincing the majority of his opinion, and the majority maintained their position down to the vote and rejected his opinion. Why did Rebbi Yehuda HaNassi retain that rejected opinion in his work? And the answer is that in the matters of those mishnas, Rebbi saw that there were people who were not aware of the final rejection. He kept a record of the dispute to show them that whereas the opinion they follow was once a legitimate one, it was ultimately outvoted and should be abandoned. This would apply as well to what were originally disputes between individuals, even with no majority involved, that were ultimately voted upon, and the Rambam does indeed apply it to such cases in the hakdama to his Mishnah Commentary. > > I also didn't realize that the end of 1:3 implies that the chakhamim > were hearing the eidus, "ve'heidu mishum Shmayah veAvtalyon... Veqiymu > Chakhamim es divreihem." I had learned these mishnayos as giving eidus > about Hillel, Shammai, Shammai, Avvtalion, and the Chakhamim of their day. Live and learn...:-) > > ... > : But to the point of your question: In any case, the Rambam's point is > : that the premise of these mishnayos, which their answers do not abandon, > : is that the Mishna was primarily composed to present the contemporary > : settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions > : and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them > : still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected > : halacha . The previous three aberrational mishnas are meant to teach > : a mussar lesson and are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Rambam > : explains that in his Mishneh Torah he follows this system, and we see > : that he also only rarely presents a mussar lesson. The issues unsettled > : in Rebbi's time were mostly settled since through the darkei pesak of > : the Gemora, and the practice of rejected opinions ceased, and so the > : Rambam inscribed the legitimate halachos in his Mishneh Torah without > : noting the opposing opinions or practices of the past. > > What makes the[ first 3 mishnas] abberational? I see the whole discussion in mishnayos > 4-6 as holding them up as examples! After all, not only does Rebbe cite > even his contemporaries' opinions, R' Ashi does as well. What makes them aberrational is that they state opinions and then state they were formally rejected. You don't have that in any other mishnayos. Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. The Rambam's mehalach is just so elegant, and answers the question of why Rebbi wrote some mishnayos in the form of a machlokess, and others as a stam mishna, omitting the fact of original dispute. > > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). If they're giving hora'ah, and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was. See also for example Rashi on Brachos 5a sv zeh gemara: Sevoras taamei ha-mishnayos shemimennu yotsa'as hora'ah, aval ha-morim hora'ah min haMishnah nik'r'u mavlei ha-oloam... The Rambam in this Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan distinguishes between two types of work, one exemplified by the Mishna, and the other exemplified by the Gemora. The Mishna was written so-to-speak as a Shulchan Aruch, primarily to present the contemporary settled and unsettled decisions, not to report formally rejected opinions and who held them, and only reported disputes if Rebbi considered them still unsettled, or if people were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called ''gemara'' , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. > > Generally, most rishonim say that a pesaq is correct because by > >> definition, following kelalei pesaq creates a correct answer. > >> > >> The Rambam ... says that a pesaq is the best we can do, and could be found > >> to be wrong in an objective sense. > > You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using ''pieces'' to ''invent'' or ''construct'' halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with the alleged dominant position? I don't see such examples in the two sources you cited, http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf or http://hsf.bgu.ac.il/cjt/files/Knowledge/Kanarfogel.pdf Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:45:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna : (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter : of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing : one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal : vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? For that matter, halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos before Rebbe's day. : > So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? : : He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and : Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? : : The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. : were still somehow practicing the rejected halacha. Analysis, knowing : and understanding the different opinions and who held them, is called : "gemara" , and that indeed was the presentation in Rav Ashi's work. Yes, as per Hilkhos Talmud Torah and "shelish bemishnah, shelish begemara". : You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or : "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. : Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with : the alleged dominant position? ... Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. There theory of halkhah and thus hashkafos are stated outright, regardless of whether there is a pragmatic consequence that we will both agree on. As for examples, didn't we discuss chatzi nezeq tzeroros more than once? (Rashi explains the misnhah according to the gemara, because later pesaq defines the real meaning of earlier. The Rambam pasqens according to peshat in the mishnah, leaving us guessing why.) But in general, difference would show up in mamrim, since that's where the halakhos of how to make halakhos come to the fore. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 13:13:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:13:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Emunah, intelligent design, scientific processes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816201334.GA6526@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:25AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : There *are* answers to that question, but it seems to me that the postulate : that the universe always existed is more elegant, because it does not : invite such questions to begin with. To continue my earlier point. This is only true if the person assumed that the cause of the universe is a normal temporal cause-and-effect relationship. However, since we're talking about the cause of the universe, and therefore of time. The First Cause isn't earlier in time than the 2nd cause. BTW< string theory, if it ever pans out and becomes an actual theory, might remove the singularity from the big bang, and allow for time before it. Back to debating scientists who believe in an eternal universe. If string theory pans out in a way that versions that have this implication are validated. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:20:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:20:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816212042.GC6526@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:07:37PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : To echo some of Micha's remarks Kant rejected any proof by design... Kant formalized the general disinclination toward proof of metaphysical claims that had been going on for a while. His problem wasn't with the argument from design in particular. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics And if one reads MmE with RACarmell's footnotes, enough of REED's ideas come from Kant to make a strong argument that he was a Kantian. I discussed in the past his position that both time and nature are more reflective of how man perceives the world (since Adam, and people who are not up at the level of neis) than of what's really out there. Very Kantian. Whereas: : Rav Dessler goes in the opposite path condemning rationality and : intellectualism. Only a torah scholar can reach the truth. Therefore : everyone should subject himself to the Torah giant and not attempt to : reason for himself. is very non-Kantian. Kant would have you rely more on will and on first-hand experience. (See the Stanford encyc entry, above.) Here is a quote from MmE 1:75, taken from RACohen's "Daat Torah" at : Our Sages have already told us to listen to the words of our rabbis - Even if they tell you that left is right. Furthermore a person should not think, G-d forbid!, that they have certainly erred just because someone so insignificant as himself has perceived that they erred. But rather [one should say that] my understanding nullified as the dust of the earth in comparison to the clarity of intellect and Heavenly support they have (siyata d'shemaya). To fill in RAC's ellision: We have an important halachic principle that one beis din can not nullify the ruling of another beis din unless it is greater than the first in wisdom and number. Otherwise it is likely that that which he thought that he perceived is merely an illusion and distorted understanding of reality. And RAC concludes: This is Daat Torah in the Rubric of Emunat Chachamim. (This was written in response to the usual question about where was daas Torah in the Holocaust.) However, as seen on pg 8, RYBS also often talked about the obligation lehitbatel lerabbo, and clearly RYBS didn't dismiss the value of independent thinking. There is nothing there about not attemptiong to reason for oneself. Only that one should refrain from blog and social media norm of deciding that the rabbis are idiots because the obviously correct answer is something else. Rather, assume they have a so much more clear understanding, my opinion is valueless. But they can still be wrong, and at times I may yet be right. But the odds are against the value of 2nd-guessing. I like RAC's continuation: Perhaps it is important to realize that a bad outcome doesn't necessarily prove the advice was bad. Sometimes the unexpected does happen, which no one could have predicted. Sometimes surgery must take place but the patient dies of an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. That doesn't mean it was a mistake to perform the necessary surgery, it just means that we are not always in control of the consequences of our seemingly wise decisions or even that we can always foresee all the possible results. [42] 42. The Gemara derives a very important article of belief when it addresses the issue of Torah leaders making mistakes. In Gittin 56b, the Gemara records the famous encounter between R. Yochanan b. Zaccai and the Roman general Vespasian during the seige of Jerusalem.... One of the answers tendered by the Gemara is most enlightening: the verse in Isaiah 44 says, "He turns wise men backwards and makes their thinking foolish." In other words, it was the Divine plan that the Temple be destroyed, and therefore Hashem deliberately prevented R. Yochanan from making the wise request which would have saved it from destruction. We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will obscures an individual's wisdom. In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik as having expressed this sentiment also. All of which is consistent with these words by REED. In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 14:31:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2016 17:31:17 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160816213117.GD6526@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 06:05:35AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Micha Berger wrote: : > With silk screen, the person is rolling out the letters in order. : > With printing, the whole amud is made at once. : : Is that really the case when silk screening? ... You can watch the process yourself: https://youtu.be/WvFED55xhv8 It is rolled from side to side, but apparently multiple rows at once. What I thought I remembered was a tiny roller that made a row. (Which would still be far faster than saferus. In either case, what R' Abadi is really doing (as opposed to that broken memory) would still be no /worse/ than a manual printing press, which the AhS apparently said would be okay. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The purely righteous do not complain about evil, micha at aishdas.org but add justice, don't complain about heresy, http://www.aishdas.org but add faith, don't complain about ignorance, Fax: (270) 514-1507 but add wisdom. - R AY Kook, Arpelei Tohar From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 21:40:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:40:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> On 8/16/2016 6:57 AM, Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter wrote: > Hebrew words that end in -on are masculine in gender, and masculine > words usually form their plural by addin -im, but words that end in > -on form their plural by adding -oth as a rule, one says ra`ayonoth > and sh`onoth and xalonoth. R' Zvi Lampel responded: I guess evyonim gilyonim xivyyonim divyonim rimonim tsidonim rishonim acharonim kadmonim shemonim esronim onim beinonim tachtonim shonim nechonim nevonim bonim nidonim aronim armonim almonim are all exceptions? Zvi Lampel >>>>> Some of the words RZL chose as counter-examples to the "rule of the --on ending" are not good examples. 1. Yes there is a city called Tzidon, but an inhabitant of that city is a Tzidoni and "Tzidonim" is the plural of Tzidoni. 2. I think "onim" is a plural verb form, not the plural form of a noun (what would the noun be, "on"?). If there is a noun that refers to "one who answers" then that noun would be "oneh." 3. The singular of beinonim is beinoni, not beinon. 4. Shemonim is a multiple of shemoneh, not of shemon. (I don't think there's a word "shemon.") Similarly, shonim is a plural form for shoneh. Bonim is the plural of boneh. 5. Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Still, you make a good case that "--on" words do not necessarily end in "--onos" in the plural. If there is rule, it has many exceptions. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 01:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:26:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna Message-ID: R' Efraim Yawitz wrote: "My whole point was that the "Kuzari Principle" at its most basic level is only about a shared history rather than specifics of religious belief. I see nowhere in Tanach that at any point there was a difference of opinion about the beginnings of Am Yisrael, only about what that obligated the individual in." Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention matan torah at Har Sinai when exhorting the people to follow Hashem and not worship Avoda Zara. Yirmiyah, Yeshaya, Yechezkel, who gave constant mussar to the Jewish people to follow Hashem and the laws never once say to the Jewish people remember Matan Torah at Har Sinai and keep the mitzvos. It seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims it was. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 00:53:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:53:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design Message-ID: > In any case, I am unhappy with the habit in some circles of pinning > every yeshivish idea with which they disagree on REED. If nothing else, > he was a mussarnik, not yeshivish. But I fear you were a victim of > someone who spun this quote from MmE with this jaundiced eye. The book "Strictly Kosher Reading" is by Yoel Finkelman. I tried some searches on him and only found that that he has a PhD from Hebrew University and teaches in Bar Ilan and also teaches Talmud and Jewish thought at Midreshet Lindenbaum. Otherwise I know nothing about him. In his book his references are to Strive to truth because that is the English version. He obviously knows Hebrew and I would assume he read the original Hebew. The book (I personally enjoyed) discusses the popular literature among charedim (mainly American). He has for example one chapter on books on parenting. He shows that while the books claim to be based on ancient Jewish ideas they are in fact mainly based on modern psychological trends and similar to general culture books on the topic. In the chapter under discussion he talks about books on theology. He distinguishes between books aimed at "insiders" and those aimed at baale teshuvot and other "outsiders". While some stress the idea of "emunah peshuta" most stress that Judaism (as distinct from other religions) is based on scientific proofs. In this chapter of some 30+ pages he brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this occupied a small portion of this single chapter. ... >> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights >> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific >> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart >> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will >> obscures an individual's wisdom. > In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik > as having expressed this sentiment also. I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:32:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:32:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] intelligent design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160817133208.GB12924@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:53:32AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : In this chapter of some 30+ pages he : brings briefly R. Dessler which he brings as being as opposition to : basing things on science which is not reliable but rather relying on : Daas Torah. This is not a study of the thoughts of REED and again this : occupied a small portion of this single chapter. DT,which he equates with emunas chakhamim. IOW, he tells you to believe because of mesorah, not science. REED: :>> We ordinary mortals, who are not blessed with the wisdom and insights :>> of Chazal, cannot make such pronouncements regarding any specific :>> episode or rabbinic advice. Nevertheless, we should take to heart :>> the essential message that there are times when the Divine Will :>> obscures an individual's wisdom. Me, paraphrasing R' A Cohen's footnote: :> In his Mipeninai HaRav, R. Herschel Shachter quotes Rav Soloveitchik :> as having expressed this sentiment also. RET: : I believe that the great majority of talmidim of RYBS were taught that : ultimately every talmid has to think for himself and not just accept : blindly what his rebbe and certainly not other great rabbis say Which is not what REED or RHS are actually talking about. REED was arguing against standing in judgement of one's rebbe. "[N]ot to say, G-d forbid, that they certainly erred". It is a misquote to take his statement of bitul of my daas to the rabbis as a denial of automous thinking when the paragraph is about denying dismissive thinking. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 16 18:34:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:34:18 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim Message-ID: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> There is a Minhag (Shelo Hakadosh and others) that before completing Shemoneh Esreh, one says Pesukim which relate to one?s name in that they start they start with the first letter of the name, and end with the last letter. This is for the Yom HaDin after 120 years unless Geula occurs before then. What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin and ends with a Gimmel. Does one use a Pasuk which has Zayin and Gimel as a word together in the middle? I have seen answers that state that if the child is named after one person, then say one Pasuk which starts with the first letter of the first name and ends with the letter of the second name. However, others say if the parents only use the first name, for example, then this doesn?t apply. I realise that these things are not likely the most important things in the world, but it has occurred twice now, where two of my grandsons were named after my father a?h who was Shaul Zelig HaCohen. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:33:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:33:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> Message-ID: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Of RZL's list of 22 words, RTK challenged 7. An 8th is "almonim", which is the plural of "almoni". Also, "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:43:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's > grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of the first. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 06:50:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:50:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? Message-ID: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled that one may absolutely not eat a salad at a non-kosher or vegan restaurant. Here are several of the reasons: 1. Maris Ayin - eating in a non-kosher restaurant gives the impression that one is doing something forbidden. 2. The knives used to cut the salad may be soiled from non-Kosher use and that would make the salad non-kosher. 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from previous usage. 4. Many vegetables need to be checked for insect infestation in order to be considered kosher. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:09:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:09:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: > What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is > Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin > and ends with a Gimmel. The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German gimel. (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 07:17:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 10:17:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> <35fd6d45-1e34-aa7d-8040-1216b7279716@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0fcec877-538b-fec7-5223-c583f81f0f8c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 09:43, H Lampel wrote: > On 8/17/2016 9:33 AM, Zev Sero wrote: >> .. "xivyonim" is very modern slang, so why should we accept that it's >> grammatically correct, and is there even such a word as "divyonim"? > Both are in Melachim Beis, 6:25 (kri and ksiv of the same word). All > I did was a data search. I probably messed up the transliteration of > the first. The ketiv is "xari-yonim", "pigeon sh*t", while the keri is "div-yonim", "that which flows from pigeons". Either way, the base word is "yonah", which is well known to be both masculine and feminine. "Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 08:12:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 11:12:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> Message-ID: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency. Thus the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they liked, because "talleth" (with a tzere, not the chirik that modern Hebrew has given it) is inherently genderless. Similarly with "ligyon". From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:34:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> References: <9331f.46b55e38.44e60776@aol.com> Message-ID: <20dbf373-1e6c-cae1-0459-d67442c214b0@gmail.com> Melachim Beis, 6:25 ZL On 8/17/2016 2:31 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 8/17/2016 2:07:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > zvilampel at gmail.com writes: > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according > methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street > slang > word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! > > Zvi Lampel > > >>>>>> > Please remind me which pasuk. Thanks. > > *--Toby Katz > t613k at aol.com* > *..* > *=============* > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:38:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:38:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions Message-ID: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/17/2016 10:17:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, zev at sero.name writes: Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. >>>>> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so please enlighten me, thank you. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 10:56:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 13:56:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: > zev at sero.name writes: >> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's > spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so > please enlighten me, thank you. http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:07:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:07:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: On 8/17/2016 1:56 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 12:38, T613K at aol.com wrote: >> zev at sero.name writes: > >>> Xivyon" (pl "xivyonim") is a modern slang word. > >> I actually have no clue what this word is supposed to be, how it's >> spelled or pronounced or what it means. Maybe I'm not the only one so >> please enlighten me, thank you. > > http://www.seadict.com/he/he/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F > It seems to be a very new word. The latest street slang. > > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:13:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:13:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: References: <90b19.5cfec641.44e5ed09@aol.com> Message-ID: <6d74bb34-e189-aca6-6ef3-9b8a083297ab@sero.name> On 17/08/16 14:07, H Lampel wrote: > Who would imagine that my attempt to transliterate a word according methodology of the poster would lead me to spelling out a street slang word! Again, I got the word from a posuk! There is no such word in the posuk. The kesiv in the posuk is chari-yonim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 09:36:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:36:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:12:05AM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : It seems to me that the traditional attitude is that foreign words have : no gender, but since Hebrew grammar requires one each writer is free to : assign them one as he pleases, with no expectation of consistency... I think that there is generaly an attempt to match the general rule. : the rishonim felt free to wrote of "tallethoth" or "tallethim" as they : liked... Actually, "Talleisim" doesn't appear until the acharonim, and only in Ashkenaz. Bar Ilan has 47 hits for "taleiysiym" and 5 for "taleisiym" (yuds written out to show difference in searches.) The sefarim (in BICD hit order, not spending time sorting): Beis Shemuel, Chasam Sofer, Penei Yehoshua, Sefas Emes, QSA, Urim, Levushei Serad, Machatzis haSheqel, MB (and Beiur Halakhah), Sma, AhS, Peri Megadim, Pisqei Teshuvos, SA haRav, Mas'as haMelekh, IM, Beis Egraim, haAdmo haZaqein, Harei Besamim , Chasam Sofer, Minchas Yitzchaq, Tzemach Tzedeq (Lub), Radal, Siach Yitzchaq, Toras Chaim, (and without the first yud) Beis Yitzchaq, Mishneh Halakhos. I think the earliest is the Sma, late 16th cent? Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you denote), and Sepharadim never switched. It's like "Shabbosim", which is grammatically wrong but appears in Ashkenazi at around the same time. Probably comes from thinking in a language that has a neuter, Yiddish. "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, like a Hebrew fem diminutive "-is" suffix. But both it and tallisos are consisten with simlah, chultzah, salmah, kutones, words for similar nouns. See also the AhS 275:23, where he argues in favor of the spelling "petzuah dakah" with a hei, because while the pasuq uses lshon zakhar when talking of an "areil leiv ve'aral basar", when speaking of the eiver, the norm is to use neqeivah, eg "giv'as ha'aralos". And he assumes that what is true of the word "orlah" is more likely to be true of other words about the same eiver. (The AhS also notes that "dakah" [hei] is a fem *adjective*, while "daka" [alef] is a masc *noun*. Citing "haGaon haChasid Maharshaz nishmaso eiden". With all those honorifics, wondering who and why -- he doesn't give such praise to everyone.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A sick person never rejects a healing procedure micha at aishdas.org as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what http://www.aishdas.org other people think when dealing with spiritual Fax: (270) 514-1507 matters? - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:32:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:32:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 12:36, Micha Berger wrote: > Chazal wrote tellisos or taliyos (or perhaps with a tzeirei, as you > denote), and Sepharadim never switched. Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any example of "tallesos". Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). > "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) was added by Hebrew. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:24:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:24:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 02:32:54PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote: : Where did Chazal use either of those plurals? I couldn't find any : example of "tallesos". : : Mishna Zavim 4:5, according to the Kauffman manuscript, has "t'li'os" : (tes with a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, alef with cholom molei, sof), : and in 4:7 it has "telayos" (tes with a shevo, lamed with a komatz, yud : with a cholom molei, sof). It also has the singular as "t'lis", (tes with : a shevo, lamed with a chirik molei, sof), whereas usually it spells it : "taleis" (tes with a patoch, lamed with a tzeireh, sof). :> "Tallios" comes from treating the Greek "-is" suffix the way it sounds, : There is no Greek "-is" suffix. The Greek is "stole". The final sof (:-)) : was added by Hebrew. The nominitive feminine signular suffix would turn "stole" to "stolis" when the item of clothing is the subject of a sentence. The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger How wonderful it is that micha at aishdas.org nobody need wait a single moment http://www.aishdas.org before starting to improve the world. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anne Frank Hy"d From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 11:58:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] "Shuv Yom Echad..." In-Reply-To: <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> References: <03e401d1f115$7fa08ad0$7ee1a070$@gmail.com> <20160808110728.GA21865@aishdas.org> <004a01d1f81f$16baa3a0$442feae0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160817185835.GA24542@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 08:34:17PM -0400, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote to Areivim (and eVaad 1): : R' MB: :> To be less extreme about it... I HIGHLY recommend stopping and spending some :> real time imagining one's own funeral. Who comes, who doesn't -- and why? :> Who does the family get to speak? What do they say about you in hespedim? :> How much of it is real? What would you have wanted them to say? (And how :> much of that is real?) How can you change the course you're on ... : Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits book suggests this as an exercise to help : you figure out what your personal mission statement should be. He has a : slightly less "depressive" twist - he says (from memory), imagine that : you're at your eightieth birthday party, and everyone gives a little speech : about you, what is it that you want them to be saying about you? It's also less emotional altogether; I am not sure it will leave the same roshem and the same attachment to the resulting Mission Statement. Speaking of Mission Statements, I suggested a tool that was used for other purposes at Bank of America back when I worked for them. It pushes you to think about how lower-scale decisions tie in to one's Mission. So that it has more chance of shaping life rather than remaining a nice platitude. : In a Hoshin Plan, upper management comes up with measurable goals for the firm. Each division head takes those goals that his division could help reach, and translates its items into smaller goals for his division. His group heads to the same to his goals, team heads... etc... This way, the individual programmer can be shown how his program, which people much above him in the hierarchy may never hear of, fits the team's goal, the group's goal, and so on all the way up to the firm's goals which must reflect its Mission Statement. Also, Hoshin Planning is an iterative process, at the end of the year, one can review the firm's goals against its accomplishments, and make more informed decisions about the goals to set for the next year. ... Enough hand-waving theory. I think an example would be illustrative. ... Subdividing this into three target ideals: ... Subdividing again: ... 1. Internalizing His Will 1.1. Daily learning 1.2. Daily Mussar work 1.3. Regular in depth learning Notice at this point I can start filling in actual tangible projects that I can meet by year's end. What daily learning will I start the year with? Should I raise the bar by year end or aim my year's growth elsewhere? And if so, what should the year-end goal be? ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 12:51:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 15:51:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> References: <14713084710.42aB.8438@m5.gateway.2wire.net> <17b711d0-95a1-01ba-5adf-d1569304a8d7@sero.name> <20160817163618.GA7255@aishdas.org> <2a296f98-019b-5eeb-2f2b-dd87d35b1c7c@sero.name> <20160817192449.GB24542@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <440536d2-f550-aef0-4b3a-115eae70444b@sero.name> On 17/08/16 15:24, Micha Berger wrote: > The LXX uses "stolis" (-eta-w/-perispomeni sigma) for the aderes the > king of Nineveh (of all of Ashur?) exchanges for sackcloth in Yonah 3:6. > That looks like a nu to me, not a sigma. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 13:53:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:53:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> That's benoni'im, not benonim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:48:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 17:48:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? In-Reply-To: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> References: <1471441856708.18256@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160817214856.GA12778@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 01:50:45PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Q. May one eat a salad at non-kosher restaurants while on the road? : A. Rav Belsky, zt"l ruled... : 3. Even if the knives were clean, if they were used to cut 'sharp' : or spicy vegetables, they will transfer the non-kosher taste from : previous usage. The same OU published in JA Winter 2012, at the tail end of by R' Eli Gersten: The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons would be batel. Earlier in the article, R Belsky's other concerned were dismissed given the office context (if the fruit platter didn't come from a non-kosher restaurant or caterer). But I find the difference of assumpions about davar charif interesting. REG, unlike his boss of the time, isn't worried about a davar charif if there is none in your own dish. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 14:35:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:35:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> Message-ID: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Since asking I saw that the LR z'l did write that one should use that Posuk you mentioned and he referred to Hilchos Gittin. Interestingly, he wrote 'until you find a more exact possuk' something that I don't understand. I also got the same possuk without explanation from Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, shlita, the Minchas Asher, last night. Asher and Zelig are the 'same' names as in Yehuda Leib etc. Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly written with the Gimmel. See page 11 here http://www.teshura.com/teshurapdf/Tzfasman-Simpson-%20-%20Sivan%208%2C%205772.pdf _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:09 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > >> On 16/08/16 21:34, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote: >> What does the Minhag say, if anything, about the name Zelig (which is >> Asher, I believe). I haven?t seen a Pasuk that starts with a Zayin >> and ends with a Gimmel. > > The LR told my uncle Zelig to say Tehillim 112:4, from which one may > learn that the correct Yiddish spelling is with a kuf, not the German > gimel. > > (In German a G at the end of a word turns into a K sound. It used to be > the fashion in Yiddish to spell German-derived words as close to the > original German spelling as one could get, presumably to show off ones > mastery of that language. But for the last century or so Yiddish has been > spelt phonetically except for Hebrew-derived words (and the communists > eliminated even that exception), so the Kuf ending is more appropriate.) > > Beis Shmuel (as cited in Kav Noki) gives the first spelling as zayin ayin > lamed yud kuf, followed by variants omitting the ayin or turning the kuf > into a gimel, as well as suffixes such as "-man", "-in". In footnote 18 > the Kav Noki says that Mahari Mintz has a long discussion about this and > concludes that since neither the ayin nor the kuf/gimel substitution has > much affect on the pronunciation the get is kosher either way. > http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22275&pgnum=152 > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:03:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:03:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly > written with the Gimmel. As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. But I haven't seen the Mahari Mintz's discussion of the subject, and that's probably where you should look if you want a serious explanation. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 16:55:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 09:55:08 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> Message-ID: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> On 18 Aug 2016, at 8:03 AM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 17:35, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. > As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since > Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be > irrelevant.... This opens up the Pandora's box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I'm sure that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught the child to spell the name with a Kuf). From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 15:01:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:01:49 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Most Detrimental Thing to Our Relationship with G-d Message-ID: <1471471319217.90994@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:25 25 When you will beget children and children's children, and you will have grown old in the land, and you then practice corruption and make an image, a representation of anything, and do what is evil in the eyes of God, your God, to anger Him; Nothing is more detrimental to our relationship to God, both as individuals and as a nation, than "growing old in the Promised Land"; i.e., our original youthful enthusiasm, engendered by the awareness that we are God's, changes to smugness, and the land for which we once yearned as the promised goal of our hopes and desires becomes "ours" [in that we take it for granted], and we grow "old" and "stale" in our possession of it. The one God, Who is imperceptible to the senses, revealed Himself to you at the dawn of your history. However, once your belief fades that this God alone bears you and the entire universe, then the world of the senses, with its supposedly sovereign realities, will assume in your minds supreme importance. You will then fling yourselves into the arms of heathen degeneration, which sees all of human existence - both individual and national - merely as a product of the physical forces of the world. You will think that these forces shape a land into the cradle of a nation, and that the nation must worship these forces in order to be master of its own fate. Once this happens, it is no longer God Who blesses you in and through His land, depending on the extent to which you subordinate your conduct to His Will. Rather, you will consider the land itself and its physical potentialities as the source of your success. __________________________________________________________ I wonder what percentage of Jews living in EY take living there for granted. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 17:21:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 20:21:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: > That?s benoni?im, not benonim. Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 00:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simi Peters via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 10:51:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] plurals In-Reply-To: References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: <000d01d1f925$706c7fc0$51457f40$@actcom.net.il> From: Zev Sero [mailto:zev.sero at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Zev Sero Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 3:21 AM > On 17/08/16 16:53, Simi Peters via Avodah wrote: >> That's benoni'im, not benonim. > Is there any MS of the gemara that has two yuds there? Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. [Email #2] Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:15:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:15:19 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> Message-ID: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> On 17/08/16 19:55, Isaac Balbin wrote: > This opens up the Pandora?s box regarding soundex in Halacha, which I > think is most (only) germane in Hilchos Gittin. On a Kesuba, I?m sure > that they write it with a Gimmel (unless parents specifically taught > the child to spell the name with a Kuf). Again, if you're really interested I suggest you look up the Mahari Mintz that the Kav Noki quotes in footnote 18 on the page I sent you. If you just want to speculate then I will repeat for the third time that the only reason to spell it with a gimmel is to copy the German spelling, which most people have no interest in doing. Yiddish words of non-Hebrew origin are usually spelt phonetically, and that means words that end in G in German end in kuf in Yiddish. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:32:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:32:46 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: I hope to find the time to see the Mahari Mintz, thanks, but my feeling is that if you did a survey of the Zeligs in the world today, they spell it with a Gimel. I guess your Uncle did to on his Kesuva? I just opened up my Tshuvos Minchas Asher, and he spells it with a Gimel. See also Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis z'l also held by that previously mentioned passuk. I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on Zelik vs Zelig. I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. Google told me "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher " The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) [which I haven't seen] and uses another meaning but this some new meaning from what I can tell and unrelated to the name as used by Jews. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 19:51:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:51:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning > as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I?m skeptical. Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with *S*elig. What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced "Zelik". > The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 17 20:24:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:24:47 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> Message-ID: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> > On 18 Aug 2016, at 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 17/08/16 22:32, Isaac Balbin wrote: >> I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning >> as the Yiddish ????? but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. Not sure how "basically" fits in here >> Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with S elig. > What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced > "Zelig". The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with a Kuf or Gimel sound. Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I've heard Chof and Ish as the end pronunciations. In Gittin you'd probably need to write both. >> The Oxford dictionary has been influenced by Woody Allens movie (Zelig) > Which was about a character with the Yiddish name. But they then define Zelig as the attributes presumably of that character, and hence it's some new meaning, although strange that Oxford adopted it. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 03:37:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 06:37:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> Message-ID: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 01:24:47PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: :> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced :> "Zelig". : The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with : a Kuf or Gimel sound. FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq for his name. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:23:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:23:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] FW: plurals In-Reply-To: <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> References: <000c01d1f8c9$6dc22510$49466f30$@actcom.net.il> <000e01d1f925$da5e62e0$8f1b28a0$@actcom.net.il> Message-ID: On 18/08/16 03:55, Simi Peters wrote: > Not that I know of, but it's al mishkal 'orvi--orvi'im' which is > somewhere in Menahot. I can check for you later exactly where. > Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I > meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be > with two yudim. And yet the gemara has it with one yud, and therefore so does every sefer that cites it, most famously, of course, the Sefer Shel Benonim, aka "Tanya". If it's a typo in the gemara, and a more accurate MS has two yuds, then one can say the common usage is incorrect, because it derives from a mistake. But if the MSS all have one yud then we must say "benonim" is correct. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:30:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? Message-ID: There?s a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning R?Yosef being blind in which he states that R?Yosef blinded himself so as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot. Why wasn?t this considered chovel (wounding self) even if done indirectly? Even if not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? Ramban Kiddushin 31a ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 04:43:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:43:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Isaac Balbin wrote: > Zev Sero wrote: >> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > Not sure how ?basically? fits in here They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated as "Zelik". >> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >> "Zelig". Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* pronounces it with a samech. > The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with > a Kuf or Gimel sound. > Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the > end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it into a shin. Micha Berger wrote: > FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more > Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who > make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) > > I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the > voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the > discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq > for his name. The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or are they just blindly copying the German orthography? If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:31:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:31:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the two versions I listed for the g in audio form I could ask my mother in law but that would be betraying the fact that my wife is half yekke :-) Maybe old timers at Breuers Shule will know. _________________________________ The information contained within this email should be considered confidential and / or privileged and is intended solely for the addressee(s) only. It may not be copied, forwarded, printed or otherwise disseminated to a third party to whom it is addressed without the explicit permission of the author of the email. If you have received this message in error, you must not copy, forward, print, or otherwise disseminate any information contained within this email or attachments. Please contact the sender advising that the error has occurred and to determine the most appropriate method of disposal. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. > On 18 Aug 2016, at 9:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > > Isaac Balbin wrote: >> Zev Sero wrote: > >>> Chanun and Asher basically mean the same thing. > >> Not sure how ?basically? fits in here > > They have the same basic meaning. Both Asher and Chanun can be translated > as "Zelik". > > >>> What do you mean "also"? Selig is the German spelling. It's pronounced >>> "Zelig". > > Sorry, I meant it's pronounced "Zelik". My point was that *nobody* > pronounces it with a samech. > > >> The end part it pronounced it at least two ways by Germans, but not with >> a Kuf or Gimel sound. >> Which Posuk would a German Jew use. I?ve heard Chof and Ish as the >> end pronunciations. In Gittin you?d probably need to write both. > > Zelich, and Zelish?! How does a German G become those sounds? Those > are the sounds various dialects of German use for "ch", not for "G". > The Dutch pronounce every G like a chof, so maybe Berliners do too, but > surely not any other Germans. And I don't see how anyone could turn it > into a shin. > > > Micha Berger wrote: > >> FWIW, I usuallly hear the Yiddish pronounced "Zeligk" and by the more >> Polisher and Galicianisher, "Zeiligk". (These are the same people who >> make a berakhah to the "MEI-lekh ha'olam"...) >> >> I thought it was a similar phonology pattern to "bundt" -- using the >> voice for only the first part of a plosive sound. > > That's exactly what it is. In German a G at the end of a word is > pronounced K, and a D at the end of a word is pronounced T. Thus a > phonetic transliteration would use kuf and tes, except in cases where > Yiddish pronunciation has softened them back. > > >> Gotta admit, not too interested in the German original, unless the >> discussion was about a /Yekke/ who was looking for the appropriate pasuq >> for his name. > > The German original is interesting for two reasons: How it would be > spelt in a German get, and to understand why it's often spelt with a gimel. > Are those who spell it with a gimel actually representing a G sound, or > are they just blindly copying the German orthography? > > If someone would find the Mahari Mintz we could have a more informed > discussion but I've got about 20 other things on my plate right now. > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 05:42:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 08:42:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> <031d9a89-9180-6dbf-4f16-cb48b9aa938c@sero.name> <6664FA6E-3E1C-401F-BDEE-A9E1B37E57A0@balb.in> <20160818103701.GD8422@aishdas.org> <66e59853-1475-5f25-9d68-7a9e1c421b76@sero.name> Message-ID: <3297e4e9-fc9e-71fb-9a90-56cae1f350f5@sero.name> On 18/08/16 08:31, Isaac Balbin wrote: > Well I typed Selig into a German pronunciation site and it gave the > two versions I listed for the g in audio form You seem to be correct. See the section on the "-ig" ending on this page: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/consong.html So one would expect to see in Beis Shmuel and Kav Noki spellings with a chof or a shin at the end. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:51:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:51:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig (was: pesukim leshemos anashim) Message-ID: >> Whilst it certainly sounded like Zelik when said, it is most commonly >> written with the Gimmel. >As I explained, that's because in German it's spelt with a G. But since >Yiddish no longer slavishly follows German spelling, that should be >irrelevant. And even when it was fashionable to pretend to be writing >German, halocho seems not to have taken any notice, and the first spelling >given in the Beis Shmuel is with a kuf. In Oholei Sheim, by thr Ba'al Kitzur Shulchan Aruch -- a sefer devoted exclusively to sheimos gittin and the one most commonly used, he writes that the default spelling is with a gimel unless the individual writes it with a kuf. Likewise the Get M'kushar (R. Arye Leib Zinz), who writes that the German pronunciation is with a kuf, but "bimdinos eilu" it is pronounced with a gimel, and should be written thus, absent evidence to the contrary in a particular case. Halacha l'ma'ase, this is what is done. EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:40:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:40:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] plurals Message-ID: <34999.654fcccf.44e74d09@aol.com> In a message dated 8/18/2016 3:55:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, familyp2 at actcom.net.il writes: Sorry--I just realized that that was probably a little obscure. What I meant is that the word ends with a yud (benoni), so in the plural should be with two yudim. Kol tuv, Simi Peters >>>>> You are being logical and grammatical, but that's not common usage. No one says "beinoni'im," everyone says "beinonim." I'm pretty sure the same is true of Tanach words like "Tzidoni" -- I think the plural is Tzidonim even if maybe logically it should be "Tzidoni'im." --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 10:42:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 13:42:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources ... (Was: Re: Prophecy) In-Reply-To: <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> References: <5fd0343f-35fa-28e3-7047-092998ba58e0@gmail.com> <20160816204541.GB6526@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <9f7dbfb2-8130-4591-bd77-009d7e8583e7@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 4:45 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 03:43:03PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: >: Any matter that Rebbi considered closed, he recorded as a stam mishna >: (despite our knowing from other sources that it was originally a matter >: of dispute). When he recorded his own opinion together with an opposing >: one, whether that of an individual or a rabbim, it was before a formal >: vote was taken, and he still hoped to convince the other side. > SO he didn't hold of yachid verabbim halakhah kerabbim, which renders > many mishnayos to be discussions of settled halakhos? Maharatz Chayos explains (Ateres Zvi, 7) that the klal of yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim rabbim's does not render the halachos settled. Beis Din (or maybe better the Av Beis Din) may see more strength to a yachid's stand and settle the halacha accordingly (as in mishna 5). When the [Av?] Beis Din does not see one side a stronger than the other, and it decides that it is time to take a vote (for example, all sides agree they fully presented their cases) then nimnu v'gamru, the matter is voted upon and the majority wins.When Rebbi was able to present what he considered to be a closed issue (his real goal, as per Rambam), he presented it as a stam mishna. With the other mishnayos presenting different sides, including yachid v'rabbim, he was describing the tentative state of affairs before the official [Av?] beis Din decision, such as through an official nimnu v'gamru. > For that matter, > halkhah keBeis Hillel also closed the discussion in numerous mishnayos > before Rebbe's day. So in such cases the reason for recording the minority shittah and Beis Shammai's shittah is the one given in Mishna 6. It was a shittah that people were known or suspected to hold onto despite it being formally rejected, so Rebbi preserved it as evidence against them. >:> So then how does he qualify as sof hora'ah? >: He doesn't. Rebbi and Rebbi Nosson were Sof Mishnah. Only Rav Ashi and >: Ravina were Sof Hora'ah (BM 86a). > Exactly... R Ashi and Ravina record machloqesin, meaning -- according > to the Rambam -- that he didn't considered these halakhos closed. So > how did the Rambam also hold that they were sof hora'ah? The Rambam held that the reason Rav Ashi and Ravina included machlokesin was different from the reason that Rebbi did. Again, the Rambam distinguises between what Rebbi meant to do by composing the Mishna , and what Rav Ashi and Ravina meant to do by composing the Gemara. Rebbi with his Mishnah meant to record how the pesak stood at his time and in his opinion. It was not written to delve into the reasoning, so one would expect just one opinion to be recorded, and special considerations need to be introduced to explain why more than one opinion is presented . The Gemora, on the other hand, was written to analyze the Mishna and delve into the reasoning behind the shittos (plus other issues not taken up in the Mishna). For that purpose, it is natural that one records machlokessin even when the pesak is closed. Rav Ashi and Ravina were the final word on the facts and considerations to be entertained. As I wrote: :> If they're giving hora'ah, :> and hora'ah is supposed to look like Mishnah Torah, why didn't Rav Ashina :> and Ravina write the Rif rather than shas? No one said Hor'a'a is supposed to look specifically like Mishneh Torah vs. Rif vs Gemara. It can be presented in different forms. Rambam said that his purpose is to provide final pesak, following Rebbi's approach in the Mishneh, with the difference that all the issues of the MIshna and Gemara were already settled by Rambam's time, so there is no reason for him to record past disputes. >: The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was... > What do you mean by "hora'ah"? Rebbe clearly intended to pasqen. > But in any case, we are talking about hora'ah. You're right, my response, "The Mishna was not meant for hora'ah; only the Gemora was..." doesn't make sense. Hora'a includes, primarily so, pesak, as you say. Rav Ashi and Ravina continued Rebbi's mission of recording pesak, and were the "sof" of that effort, finalizing the pesak, something that Rebbi did not do. In addition, they also did somethng else Rebbi did not do: They put into a girsa the analyses behind the shittos, something that heretofore was maintained orally and without a universally fixed girsa. .... >: You'd have to bring me specific examples to illustrate this alleged >: dispute between Rambam and most rishonim. And again, I'd like tounderstand >: what you meant by rishonim using "pieces" to "invent" or >: "construct" halachos in a way different from how the Rambam does so. >: Can you give any specific examples of pesak contrasting Rambam's with >: the alleged dominant position? ... > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what machloqes and > pesaq are in very different ways? He provides translations and citations. ... Bli nedder I'll respond to the above separately. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 18 13:08:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:08:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Without the Torah the land is not the Land of Israel Message-ID: <1471550931429.51926@stevens.edu> The following is part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:5 5 See! I have taught you statutes and [social] ordinances as God, my God, made it my duty, so that you may act accordingly in the midst of the land to which you are coming to take possession of it. You see that I have taught you statutes and social ordinances in accordance with God's command, so that you should observe them in the land you are about to enter. Thus you have been presented with a fact that is important for your calling and for the significance of these laws, and that sets you and these laws apart from all other laws and nations: You are the only nation in the world that possessed laws before it possessed a land of its own. Furthermore, these laws are the only laws that are not intended as a means for building up a national existence and for achieving national independence and prosperity deriving from the national land. Rather, these laws are the sole end for which you were given all of the above. Every other nation becomes a nation through its land, and afterward it creates laws for its land. You, by contrast, became a nation through the Torah, and you received a land for [the sake of observing] the Torah. The laws of all other nations are the product of the nation's unique character - engendered by its land - and of the changing needs of the nation's development. But your lawgiver, the man from whose hands you received your Law, has never even seen your land, never set foot on it. He merely transmitted to you the Law, and his grave in the wilderness is the Divine seal on the Law that he, the lawgiver, transmitted; his grave attests that this Law is eternal and immutable. The laws of the Torah are absolute, whereas you and your land are conditional. The laws of the Torah do not change in accordance with changes in your fortunes or in the fortunes of your land. Rather, your fortunes and the fortunes of your land change in accordance with the extent to which you are faithful to the laws of the Torah. With the Torah in your arms, you now stand on the border of the land you are to enter, in order that you may there observe the Torah in its entirety. With the Torah in your arms, you will be temporarily exiled from the Land, but again and again you will stand as a nation whose whole purpose is to live for the observance of this Torah. Thus shall you await the moment when you will be able once again to enter the Land, which was given to you so that you may observe the Torah in its entirety. You are the people of the Torah, not the people of the Land; the land is the Land of the Torah, and without Torah the land is not the Land of Israel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 05:41:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Arie Folger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Zelig Message-ID: Since some august Ovedim seem confused about some aspects of Zelig and of German, here is some additional info: Zelig is written Selig in German and indeed means something like Chanun or Asher. According to RMBerger in a long past issue of Avoda, it is the origin of the word silly, the common denominator meaning blessed/bliss. No, RIB, the G in Selig is not pronounced almost like a khaf; that's Dutch, not German. In German, it is a hard G, or, depending on the word and the area, a K. The S of Selig is obviously pronounced Z, as that's how a single source followed by a vowel is pronounced I'm German. Whether to transliterate the financial G as Gimmel of Quf would possibly depend on where one was and hence how it is pronounced. Trivia: the German equivalent of zikhrono livrakha is seligen Andenken, literally of blessed memory. We use it in our publications. Kol tuv, -- Mit freundlichen Gr??en, Yours sincerely, Arie Folger Check out my blog: http://rabbifolger.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 14:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat Message-ID: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered - to be discussed in a future Halacha Yomis). There are two ways that heating a dairy food in a microwave will make it dairy. If the food is placed directly on the surface of the microwave, once it becomes too hot to touch (yad soledes bo), which is approximately 120?F, ta'am (taste) of the food will be absorbed into that surface. This is true, even if the surface that the food is resting on does not get hot. Furthermore, if a dairy food is heated in an open container, even though there is no direct contact between the food and the microwave surface, it will also become dairy, once the food gives off steam. The steam that emanates from a dairy food has the same status as the food itself. Because microwave radiation heats the water molecules in the food, a lot of steam is quickly generated. The hot steam is absorbed into all the surfaces of the microwave, even those that are not hot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 08:18:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Saul Guberman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 11:18:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a Microwave for dairy and meat In-Reply-To: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> References: <1471618517028.6787@stevens.edu> Message-ID: The star-K has a different psak. http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/kosher-appliances/489/microwaving-in-the-workplace/ On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Professor L. Levine wrote: > The following is from today's OU Halacha Yomis. > Q. I have heard that one may use the same microwave oven for dairy and > meat, since the food is heated by microwave radiation and not with fire and > the walls don't really get hot. Is this correct? > A. If a microwave oven was used to cook a dairy food, it should no longer > be used for meat, and vice versa (unless kashered -- to be discussed in > a future Halacha Yomis)... From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:26:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:26:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together Message-ID: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> R. Johanan said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yohai: "If Israel were to keep two Sabbaths according to the laws thereof, they would be redeemed immediately, for it is said, Thus saith the Lord of the eunuch that keep my Sabbaths, which is followed by, even them will I bring to my holy mountain, etc." The question is asked why only two Sabbaths and does Shabbat really have the power to reverse the lot of the Jewish people and usher in the era of redemption. In response, a Chassidic Rebbe indicates that the two Sabbaths refer to none other than Shabbat Chazon and Shabbat Nahamu. If we sincerely embrace their message, we shall then transform the condition of Jewish existence. Shabbat Chazon recalls the pain and pogroms, etc., that we suffered and to observe it is to remember the fallen glory of our past. In its very observance lies the seed of Nahamu ? hope and victory. Shabbat Nahamu is the promise of rebirth and vindication. Mysteriously and miraculously Chazon gives birth to Nahamu. Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. May we all be comforted from our individual and national tragedies and live to see the Redemption. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 09:45:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:45:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] silk-screened sifrei torah (STAM) and megillot In-Reply-To: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> References: <20160812175347.GA32126@aishdas.org> Message-ID: My inclination would be to pasken they are kosher. But it is radical. KT, GS, YGB PS How long is the cycle of AhS yomi? On 8/12/2016 1:53 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > > > Leshitaso, I don't see why silk screening by hand, lesheim qedushas > sefer Torah, would be a problem. > > -Micha > From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 19 10:39:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:39:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bond that Ties Chazon and Nahamu Together In-Reply-To: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> References: <445EBBD3-6309-4274-81CC-C397A9D5CEDF@cox.net> Message-ID: <20160819173926.GA30913@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 12:26:53PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : Interestingly (as a side) the Talmud (Bava Metzia 30b) asserts that : the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because people stuck to the leter of : the law and did not penetrate the spirit of the law. This is not the only way to understand that gemara. It could be that it was because people stuck to the letter of the law without ever trying for any stretch goals. As RYBS often said, "Halakhah is a floor, not a ceiling." Admittedly, one can't know which way is "up", what direction to go beyond the letter of the law -- or in rabbinic idiom, which direction is further in from the borders of the legal (lifnim mishuras hadin) -- without getting some sense of taamei hamitzvah. The "experimental data" of mitzvos are our strongest indicators of qedusha, tov and yosher with which to implement "qedoshim tihyu", "vehasisa hayashar vehatov", or hilkhos dei'or. But it gives a behavioral / moral focus to their flaw rather than a coginitive / theological one. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Live as if you were living already for the micha at aishdas.org second time and as if you had acted the first http://www.aishdas.org time as wrongly as you are about to act now! Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:54:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday Message-ID: Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu mayim. I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and not learn any Torah? In any case the original takana was either 1 person 3 pesukim or 3 people 1 pasuk each. This is not exactly a big dose of talmud torah. What was the point of having them read a grand total of 3 pesukim? Additionally didn't they say Krias Shema in the morning and at night, why wouldn't that count as limud hatorah? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 00:45:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:45:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Steam issuing from a dairy food .... Message-ID: The Rosh Paskens that steam will be Fleishig or Milchig as per the liquid from which it emanates. Proof from Machshirim (2:1) - steam from water that is Tomei (ritually impure) which condenses on the wall, is considered Tomei. The Shulchan Aruch (Yorah Dayah 92:8) quotes this ruling of the Rosh. ?Steam from milk which contacts and is absorbed in a meat vessel, renders it non-Kosher.? Three questions - What connection is there between Tumah and Kashrus? Kashrus depends on TaAm. Condensed Tamei water may remain Tamei but condensed milk evaporative should need to have TaAm milk. How do we understand the Halacha that permits LeChatChilah hanging meat to dry above the stove where milk is being boiled? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 01:06:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:06:05 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens Message-ID: Steam is the great enemy of efficient microwave cooking. Therefore all microwave ovens have fans to effectively vent all the steam from the microwave cavity. Proof - during cooking the door/window does not become fogged. Switch off the oven, wait for 10 seconds then open the door, it will be covered in condensation. Here is another test - boil a large jug of water in the microwave for a long time, lets say 15 minutes, [ensure there is enough water to last for the duration] then open the door, reach inside and feel the walls of the oven. They will not be warm but cool. The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water being conducted to it. So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 05:25:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 08:25:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160821122540.GA26963@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water : being conducted to it. : So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the : microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes. So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the floor or turntable? I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting it be checked out. Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the stuff the waves work on. I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well, Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee, it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim. (I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not needing a hekhsher.) But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top, and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel to be an issue? Tir'u baTov! -Micha PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!" Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the book 36 times! -- Micha Berger "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes micha at aishdas.org "I am thought about, therefore I am - http://www.aishdas.org my existence depends upon the thought of a Fax: (270) 514-1507 Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 09:32:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:32:14 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Breaking a minyan into two Message-ID: <98b3dae3-60cf-88fc-d226-22807edc4c96@zahav.net.il> http://zomet.org.il/?CategoryID=160 Normally it is taken as a given that an avel has the right to daven from the amud. Rav HaCohen addresses this point in tshuvah on breaking up a minyan so that two avelim can lead teffila (spoiler alert: he rules that if there is a minyan kavuah, the minyan shouldn't be broken into two). Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 21 21:18:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:18:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? Message-ID: The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din be today when we have no slave market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 04:59:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/08/16 00:18, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > The first mishna in hachovel states that if you knock someone's eye > out etc. you pay based on the difference in value that he would be > sold on the slave market with and without an eye. How would this work > today when we have no slave market? The shulchan aruch just quotes > the din of the Gemara as does the Aruch Hashulchan and even the > Pischei Choshen that you evaluate him as a slave. What would the din > be today when we have no slave market? Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 06:11:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:11:17 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei > chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but damages which we are batei din do deal with. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 08:04:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:04:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> On 22/08/16 09:11, Marty Bluke wrote: > I don't think so, we are talking about nezeq which is not a knas but > damages which we are batei din do deal with. No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 09:37:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 19:37:55 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > No, our batei din aren't authorised to deal with chavalos at all. > Our dayanim are only the shluchim of the real batei din that used to > exist, and they didn't authorise us for this. Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 10:43:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 13:43:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: > Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:20:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 21:20:51 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: > On 22/08/16 12:37, Marty Bluke wrote: >> Yet this din is quoted in shulchan aruch Siman 420. > Yes. Remember that the Mechaber had smicha, and could therefore in principle > sit a bet din that would judge dinei chavalos. And there were functioning > slave markets where such a bet din could conduct such an assessment. The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. In any case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most definitely did not have semicha bring this lehalacha in Siman 420. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 11:46:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:46:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> Message-ID: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> On 22/08/16 14:20, Marty Bluke wrote: > The mechaber does not pasken halachos because he had semicha. I don't know what you mean by this. He had semicha, therefore he could judge dinei chavalos. I don't know whether he ever did, but the fact that he could means that these dinim were halacha lemaaseh for him and his colleagues, and for anyone who would receive smicha from them. > In any > case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most > definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha no longer existed in EY. (There are historians who claim that it survived in Damascus all the way until the Crusades; they would cross the border into EY to give smicha.) I don't know. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:33:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:33:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> RZS wrote... Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. Not true. Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:15:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 22:15:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On Monday, August 22, 2016, Zev Sero wrote: >> In any >> case the Tur and other piston including the Aruch Hashulchan who most >> definitely did not have semicha bring this lhalacha in Siman 420. > The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos > that were not lemaaseh in his day. As for the Tur, perhaps the Spanish > rabbonim of his father's day, just as they judged dinei nefashos by the > government's authority, also judged dinei chavalos. Or perhaps he > anticipated the renewal of smicha, or even didn't know that the smicha > no longer existed in EY.... If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:32:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:32:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 02:46:58PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Aruch Hashulchan is not a question, since he discusses many halachos : that were not lemaaseh in his day... And not just in haAsid. The AhS discusses sugyos, not individual dinim. So if some of the sugyah is lemaaseh but it also involves questions that are not, he is likely to discuss it. ... : But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter why the Tur brought these : halachos, the fact is that only musmachim can apply them, and by the time : slavery disappeared there were definitely no musmachim. Therefore the : question how a beis din of musmachim today would assess nezek is moot. IMHO, a BD should still have some idea of what the din require if we were able to fulfil it, so that they can help reach a meaningful pesharah. I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too rare to support a real ever Ivri market. So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, and no market price. Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current loss of value, not future earnings lost. Just in case the question was bothering any of our chevrah here... On Wall Street, the value of a stock reflects expectations of the company's future earnings. I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) IOW, among two avadim of equal strength, the younger one who has more years of that strength ahead of him would be worth more. Similarly, an eved who knows how to manage retirement investments would bring a hypothetical rav far more money for the rest of the yovel The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to 1 month employments? It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are headed in the direction of our answer. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When one truly looks at everyone's good side, micha at aishdas.org others come to love him very naturally, and http://www.aishdas.org he does not need even a speck of flattery. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 12:42:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 15:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> Message-ID: On 22/08/16 15:15, Marty Bluke wrote: > If the din only applied to semuchim he wouldn't write it stam. > > The truth is that the mechaber writes in Siman 1 that we aren't dan > nezeq today except semuchim in Israel. At the end of Siman 420 he > references this. So it would seem that even though there is a whole > Siman about nezeq it doesn't apply today. Again, in his day there were smuchim, and he himself was one, so it did apply. And there were slave markets so there was no practical problem. On 22/08/16 15:33, M Cohen wrote: > RZS wrote... >> Since our batei din without semicha have no authority to judge >> dinei chavalos anyway, the issue is moot. > Not true. > Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should > you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 14:52:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:52:29 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <672eba72-266d-6915-1d7c-ec85bdda7b07@sero.name> On 22/08/16 17:32, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. > > So, it's likely we will have neziqim, musmachim to adjudicate them, > and no market price. It should be obvious that nezek is estimated as the reduction in the victim's value as an eved kenaani, i.e. kinyan haguf rather than kinyan mamon. And that market may well return in yemos hamoshiach. > Anyone want to guess what ideas the Sanhedrin would invoke? Perhaps they will adopt the system civil courts use today. > BTW, one magid shiur asked on FB about nezeq being determined by current > loss of value, not future earnings lost. As you say, current value includes projected future earnings. That's why sheves is not paid according to his old job but according to what he could have earned now if he were not in a hospital bed. The loss of his old earning capacity was already covered by nezek. > I would assume that similarly, the value of an eved is a function of the > utility the eved will provide future owners. (Rentors? employers? eved > ivri is of limited duration; "owner" is not 100% accurate of a term.) Eved kenaani, and therefore "owner" is accurate. An indenture holder or employer doesn't enjoy the full value of the person, and therefore the price he pays doesn't reflect it. > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Again, this is why it has to be eved kenaani. We're concerned with the loss of value *to the victim*, who has no intention of selling himself! > It would seem to me to be hypothetical, estimating what he would fetch > right after yovel. And once you're talking hypothetical pricing, you are > headed in the direction of our answer. Even if your premise were correct, it wouldn't help answer this question, because in the absence of a functioning slave market there's no basis for a hypothetical valuation. Given a functioning market for avadim ivriyim an expert could predict what someone's value will be next year. But with no market there can't be any experts. They have nothing to base their expertise on. They'd be like xenobiologists, and under the standards used by the secular courts today they would not be allowed to testify. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 22 20:52:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 06:52:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> References: <834d9948-9835-29d7-feae-7ba961e1e1ff@sero.name> <8f80a220-75ce-73cc-a8d2-b4c4f5f63dc0@sero.name> <3082dc90-0c3d-8624-d868-bc77841f9039@sero.name> <20160822213201.GA30608@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tuesday, August 23, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > I assume that in yemos haoshiach, accidents that lead to injury will > still be possible, but theft and poverty (post tzedaqah) would be too > rare to support a real ever Ivri market. ... > The biger problem is just that -- yovel. Should somone who is injured > in Elul of year 49 receive next to nothing because the market is down to > 1 month employments? Nezeq is calculated based on an eved cnaani not an eved ivri, see the Rosh at the beginning of Hachovel. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 07:11:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one oven which I use for fleishigs, and occasionally, when I need to bake something dairy, I kasher it. When I am finished, I kasher it again to use for fleishigs. Is this permitted? A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave. Therefore, according to some opinions, if one did not kasher a fleishigs oven before using it for dairy, the food would be still be permitted. (If one actually did so, they should discuss with a rabbi.) The Beis Yosef (Yoreh De'ah siman 2) writes that we are not concerned that one will forget to remedy a situation if even in the event that they were to forget, the food would still be permitted. Therefore, Rav Schachter said that since many people do not have the luxury of owning two ovens, they may rely on the lenient opinion in regards to kashering the oven between meat and dairy. Furthermore, Rav Schachter said that one may do the same with their microwave oven if they are careful to always place the food inside a bowl and place a cover on top. This way there is no direct contact with the microwave, and the cover will keep most of the steam contained inside the bowl. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 23 12:56:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2016 15:56:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Legions In-Reply-To: <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> References: <29461b.6b7aa275.44e544a7@aol.com> <189d35dc-4e03-d6d4-1fdf-e0e5dc86c28b@sero.name> Message-ID: <5273ab81-36b2-ce9e-5540-992ee67c480e@gmail.com> Regarding my collection of words that ostensibly are exceptions to the rule that the plural of nouns ending in "on," although masculine, are usually formed by adding -oth rather than -im, REMT wrote to me offlist (but then gave me permission to cite him by name) that the only words on my list that are exceptions are esronim, rimonim, and armonim meaning chestnuts, spelled with an ayin (not with an alef, meaning castles. The rule is stated for nouns, such as gilayon, and not for adjectives such as rishon, acharon, kadmon, nor verbs such as nidon. He also pointed out that at least one of my examples is not a plural at all -- sh'monim -- it doesn't mean "more than than one sh'mon" -- and many are not plurals of "on-ending" words: onim is the plural of oneh (and is a verb, to boot); beinonim is a plural of beinoni; almonim is the plural of almoni; shonim, of shoneh; bonim, of boneh; Tzidonim, of Tzidoni -- not of Tzidon (as RTK also noted). Finally, the plural of aron is aronos, not aronim. Regarding the last, another which was also picked up by RTK, my mistake was taking the word aronim in Gemara RH 23 as an example of a plural, which it is not. All this goes to demonstrate that doing clever data searches is no substitute for knowledge. But being a glutton for punishment, here's another try for an exception to the rule: Chalonim (windows, from chalon) (Yechezkiel 41:16, Yoel 2:9), although most often it's pluralized chalonos. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 24 06:30:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2016 13:30:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Use of One Microwave Message-ID: <1472045436587.80965@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. I only have one microwave oven. How can I use it for both milchigs and fleishigs? A. Best of course is to have two microwaves, one for milchigs and one for fleishigs. But if that is not possible, one should designate the microwave for one use or the other. Then, if for example, one needs to warm something milchigs in their fleishig microwave, they should double wrap the food. Unfortunately, this is not advisable for heating liquids in a microwave, because the buildup of steam will often cause the wrappings to burst. But dry items can be double wrapped, and even liquids can be double wrapped so long as they are only warmed. One may use two plastic wraps or even a plastic wrap and a paper wrap. For example, one may place the plate of food into a Ziploc bag and then place that bag inside a paper bag. It is preferable that the microwave be wiped clean first. Similarly, in a non-kosher environment, i.e. an office, double wrapping a kosher product before using the microwave is the only way to guarantee the kosher integrity of the food. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 07:51:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of Pareve Soup cooked in Fleishigs microwave Message-ID: <1472136694762.51473@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis. Q. I cooked a pareve soup in a pareve bowl in my fleishigs microwave. Is the food now fleishig? Can I still serve it at a milchig meal? What is the status of the bowl? A. If a pareve soup is cooked in a pareve pot and a clean fleishig pot cover would be placed on the pot, we would consider the soup to be a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs. The minhag of Ashkenazim is that we will not eat this food directly with dairy, but it may be eaten before or after dairy. The same would hold true in our case with the microwave. Since the steam from the food connects the bowl and the microwave, we would view the microwave as the "pot lid" on the bowl of soup. Regarding the bowl itself, it would remain pareve, provided it had been placed on a clean surface that did not have any meat residue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:29:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:29:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using a dishwasher for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192923.GB32586@aishdas.org> >From R' Asher Weis's talmidim's website, a translation of a shu"t by RAW. http://en.tvunah.org/2016/08/25/dishwasher-for-meat-and-dairy/ Tir'u baTov! -Micha Question: I was wondering what the issue of using a dishwasher for both meat and dairy would be considering it is NAT BAR NAT BAR NAT. and it is additionally lpgam due to the detergent. I have seen it quoted in Or Yitzchak by Rav Abbadi from Lakewood. And wondering if it is what to rely on. Secondly, and more peripheral, where did the misconception come from that a Sephardi follows Sephardi Rabanim, and Ashkenazi follow Ashkenazi? Me being a Sephardi I feel obligated to follow Rav Yosef. But is it the right way of thinking? Thank you. Answer: There are hundreds of different models of dishwashers, each one needs to be checked to determine its status for using for milk and meat. I presume you are referring to using the same dishwasher for meat and milk one after the other and not at the same time. Some of the potential problems include, dishwashers with a hot rinse cycle that does not use detergent and so does not make the taam pagum. Some dishwashers have drainage and/gaskets that accumulate actual pieces of food which are not immediately nifgam, and are not Nat bar Nat because the actual food is there. Some wait 24 hours, or run a pareve cycle and then use from meat to milk, but many are stringent not to use at all for meat and milk, and this is certainly a commendable and advisable practice. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:23:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:23:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> References: <1471961484295.22813@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160825192305.GA32586@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 02:11:36PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : A. We have previously seen that a microwave oven should not be kashered : back and forth from milchigs to fleishigs, since we are concerned that : one may forget the status of the microwave and might inadvertently cook : dairy in it after using it for meat. However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. Additionally, an oven : will not fill with steam to the same degree as a microwave.... I don't understand either of these distinctions, for balebateshe reasons: 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? More often than people using the oven grates directly? 2- As RMR just noted last week, how much steam do you typically find fogging up your microwave? How often to you open your oven and a cloud of vapor slithers out the opening door? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 12:51:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 15:51:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Foie Gras Message-ID: <20160825195137.GC32586@aishdas.org> I last touched this topic in 2013 http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol31/v31n137.shtml#12 In that post MK R Moshe Gafni (degel) assumed the production of foie gras was assur and voted atainst legalizing production in Israel. RYSE was asked, said mutar. RMF (EhE 4:92) distinguishes based on the quailty of the benefit to people. RMF felt that white veal was not that much more than a marketing ploy, and the tza'ar ba'aei chaim is not justifiable. Nothing directly about foie gras, though. Oral tradition has it that the Chasam Sofer often ate foie gras. (Presumably he wouldn't have if its production was assur, even if the resulting food is kosher.) RMT prohibits both, but on the grounds that the resulting goose or calf is too likely to be a tereifah, not tzaar baalei chaim. Well, a new contribution, also (like the dishwasher post above) from the R' Asher Weiss web site . Here's the English, there is much more in Hebrew. (My impression: The same kind of mutar but is this really what we want to be doing? as the Noda biYhudah on hunting.) Question: Kvod Harav, what is your view and psak halacha in regards to the consumption of goose liver which has presumably been force fed, assuming there was no issue of treifos in the veshet/kaneh, but rather due to tzaar baalei chaim, from the little bit that I have seen, being that its done for mankind, and its done by a non jew, and it may only be a Drabanan, would that impose an issur on someone who hasnt taken part in the force feeding, from eat it? thank you. Answer: Something being done to an animal for the purpose of food preparation is permitted according to the letter of the law. Nevertheless, the Rama at the end of Even Haezer Siman 5 writes that even when there is no actual prohibition of Tzaar Baalei Chaim, there is still the concern of acting with cruelty towards animals. For this reason, he explains, people tend to refrain from such procedures, when they are not totally necessary. This would seem to be true of foie gras as well. The question of using such methods should be considered within this context, and judged based on the necessity and gain while considering the animals pain. Consumption of the food after the fact would not seem to pose a problem, although we should not be encouraging such procedures even done by non Jews. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 01:16:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:16:35 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 10:46 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate > compensation, which have been worked out by the civil courts. I think a > beis din today, setting the limit on "ad sheyefayes" as described in CM 1, > would say it's whatever he could have got in civil court had he sued there. Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to determine the nezeq. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 05:22:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:22:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How do we evaluate nezeq nowadays of a person? In-Reply-To: References: <115801d1fcac$1b9b1da0$52d158e0$@com> <884e26c3-fabe-25cb-a1d9-39f30f54858b@sero.name> Message-ID: On 25/08/16 04:16, Marty Bluke wrote: >>> Even if we don't judge chavalos, an important n'mina w be how much should >>> you pay in order to l'ztais y'dei shamayim. >> 1. Ad sheyefayes es chavero >> >> 2. Nowadays we have more sophisticated methods of determining appropriate >> compensation... > Are you saying that the din of the gemara no longer applies because > we have better ways of determining value? I looked in the Pischei > Choshen (which is a contemporary sefer on Choshen Mishpat) and he > still quotes what it says in the Shulchan Aruch as to how to > determine the nezeq. As I said, our batei din cannot rule on dinei chavalos anyway. Their only role today is to set a limit on ad sheyefayes, which I'll bet they are rarely if ever called on to do. But if a BD is ever asked to do so, they will immediately run into the problem you pointed out. And the method used by the courts today will immediately recommend itself; not only does it work, which the old method doesn't any more, but it's also superior to the old method, because it's designed for the purpose rather than adapted from a slightly different use. They will also run into the more practical problem that the plaintiff will have taken legal advice, and will have a pretty good idea of what he could recover at law, should he go there, and will be very reluctant to settle for less. I'm not even sure if one needs a heter erkaos in such a case, but if he asks for one the BD would be hard-pressed to refuse it, so how can they tell him to be mollified by a smaller settlement? -- Zev Sero zev at sero.name From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 16:41:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:41:55 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: V difficult to see how a pareve soup cooked in a fleishigs microwave is deemed to be a NbN. It would be permitted to add sour cream to that soup. A clean BY fleishig pot cover placed on a pareve soup, cooking in a pareve pot is a nat bar nat (secondary taste) of fleishigs only because there is an intense cloud of heated steam that connects the P soup to that F pot cover. And that pot cover was connected via a similar intense cloud of heated steam to meat. It is the intense cloud of heated steam that deems the pot cover to be in contact with the food. However, the steam itself is not F. As is evidenced in the Pesak permitting hanging meat to dry over the stove on which milk is being cooked. As demonstrated in a previous post, the steam in a microwave does not ever form an intense heated cloud. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:28:53 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets Message-ID: why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay TODAY to own all the future earnings? So a soccer champion is evaluated - pretty much the way insurance companies evaluate their policies, and receives his payout in exchange for all his future earning be they for playing, commentating, endorsing etc. Nezek is a payment for what has been taken out of the pocket of the injured fellow. Nezek is not compensation for loss of ftutre earnings, that is Gerama, he does not yet have that in his pocket. if the soccer champion loses his ear, the damage is pretty close to zero. If he loses a leg, he loses the component as a player but can still be a coach sell endorsements etc. All this will be evaluated and the risks assessed by the insurance investment company. And there would be a market and offers and counter offers. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 17:07:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:07:51 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: (Moderator note: Off topic, but I thought that if we raised the topic, some warning that it may be dangerous should reach the full Avodah audience as well. Any arguments by anyone who disagrees with RMR should go to Areivim. [And knowing this crowd, someone will.] I am only bending the rules to provide awareness that the issues exist. BTW, I have a burn on my arm from steam from opening a bag of reheated sausages from the microwave. 10 days later, still there. Thank G-d, nothing exploded, though. -micha) Since microwave ovens do not ever form intense clouds of heated steam, the walls and ceiling of the oven do not become Milchig or Fleishig; even if M or F foods are cooked without a cover. However, boil-overs are V common in microwave ovens. Therefore, one ought to designate the provided platter/turntable as either M or F and designate a microwave safe plate of roughly the same size which simply sits on top of the microwave turntable, for the alternative. If a F food boils over it will make the turntable F. If afterwards, a dairy food boils over on the same platter/turntable, the liquid will act as a medium via which the absorbed flavours will cross transfer and create BBCh It is extremely dangerous to enclose any food to be heated in the microwave. Whole potatoes and egg yolks MUST have their skins pierced. Microwave ovens have been badly damaged by exploding potatoes and egg yolks that due to the very rapid and extreme build up of pressure have exploded. Water can be heated well in excess of 100C, its usual boiling point, and this happens in microwaves. You can try, with care, this little experiment - heat water in a cup in a microwave (some of you may have already experienced this) and remove it just before it has begun to boil [may need to try this a couple of times until the you get the timing]. Add sugar or coffee. The water will erupt like a volcano. There are recorded injuries due to this phenomenon. The water is actually hotter than 100C and has not yet been seeded [I think that is the word used; its what we see when water boils in a pot, bubbles form at various points where the surface of the pot is scratched] and when sugar is added to this superheated water it suddenly releases creating the eruption. DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:22:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:22:44 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 22:12:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 01:12:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> On 25/08/16 20:28, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > why is it not appropriate to see what an investment group would pay > TODAY to own all the future earnings? There is no such market, because once the person has been paid there would be no way to force him to go on working. Anyone given such a deal would immediately retire. He would have no further reason to work. If he had to work he'd be lazy and uncooperative until he got sacked. Slavery presents a similar problem, but there are partial solutions. One can never get the full value out of a slave, but one can get a large proportion of his value, and that is built into the market price (which is a flaw in the method for assessing nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with). But with a free man one could never get anything out of him, so nobody would ever offer such a contract in the first place. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Aug 25 23:32:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:32:15 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: I am inclined to disagree with the proposition that Chazal's evaluation for Nezek, sale at the slave market, is a flawed method for assessing Nezek, but it's the best Chazal could come up with. Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? Ohev Kessef Lo Yisba K. A Gevir would like to die making money. I saw a Nusach of Mi SheYesh Lo Mona Rotza ... Rotza LaAsoSo Masayim. LaAsoso I think means - it is a game he doesnt need it he just wants to double it. Parker bros Monopoly So the prob I think is far more pronounced with a potato peeler floor sweeper slave. They would be lazy. Indeed. So what? Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list goes on. So Chazal provide a PERFECT method for paying Nezek. I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 04:54:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: On 26/08/16 02:32, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > > Certainly slaves are lazy, and certainly an injured soccer player who > has been paid out for what he is worth, will also be tempted to be > lazy, why bother? after all he already has his money. > > But think about it. The soccer player gets paid for his devaluation > from a two legged soccer player to a one legged soccer player. Lets > say thats 20 mill. But that is not his full value. He can still > coach, commentate, endorse, go on lecture tours etc. So he DOES have > value and DOES have potential earning power. Why should he bother > working? Ask any Gevir why they continue working? You misunderstand. Your proposal hinges on the existence of a market in people's entire future earnings; that there exist investors who routinely pay a person a lump sum in return for every penny he will ever make again. Thus, you suggest, we can consult experts in that market and find out what sort of lump sum this person could have got before his injury for such a deal, and how much he could get now for the same deal, and the mazik will pay him the difference. But no such market exists or can exist, because once a person has sold all his future earnings, he has no reason ever to earn anything again. > Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. Yes, it is. The mazik has taken that from the nizak, and must make him whole. Why should the nizak bear any of the loss? > It is paying for ACTUAL LOSS that has been taken from the victim. Which includes all of that. > What actual money did the victim have that he lost? Not more than > what the market offers as a slave WHICH INCLUDES all the risk factors > such as health risks, injury risks, mental welfare risk the risk of > him being lazy incompetent unwilling being depressed and the list > goes on. But he was *not* a slave, and therefore was not subject to the same risks. He would have earned far more than a slave identical to him would have earned, and now he has lost it. He has also lost pleasure and satisfaction that are not reflected in a slave's price, because an owner doesn't benefit from his slaves' pleasure or satisfaction, so he's not willing to pay for them. The current methods we have, which do at least attempt to measure these factors, are therefore superior. > I hasten to add that to gain Mechila, one must pay more. The > agrressor must pay for loss of quality of life, for mental anguish in > short there is a duty to be MeFayess, to mollify the victim. But this is not so. If a beis din is called on to set a limit on the amount one must pay for piyus, they must set it at the same amount as what a BD would have awarded back then. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place, because that's the only role a BD of non-musmachim *can* play in dinei chavalos. I am skeptical that anyone ever actually calls a BD for this purpose, but if they are called that is how they must rule. And yet nowadays that is clearly not going to mollify the nizak, or make him whole, and the BD is going to be hard pressed to refuse him a heter arkaos, even if he actually needs one, which I doubt. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 06:59:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 09:59:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Destroying Pagan Idols Message-ID: <20160826135955.GA18821@aishdas.org> >From R' Eliezer Eisenberg's blog "Beis Vaad L'Chachamim" (so named because he wants a dialog and posts are routintely enhanced in light of comments). a/k/a Does the chiyuv to destroy AZ trump property rights? Is bittul a better approach, especialy in light of the potential for eivah? :-)BBii! -Micha Eikev, Devarim 7:25. Destroying Pagan Idols This week, before our Daf Yomi shiur began, one of the talmidim wanted to ask a general information question. That day, Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi, a former Malian rebel leader associated with al-Qaida, pleaded guilty at the International Criminal Court to destroying priceless monuments in Timbuktu in 2012. Under The Rome Statute of 1998 that established the International Criminal Court, the destruction of cultural heritage can be prosecuted as a war crime. The question asked was whether we have a mitzva to do as he did, to destroy what we pasken is Avoda Zara. I found the question offensive, because it hinted at a commonality between the rapist slave trading bloodthirsty beasts of ... In any case, the fact is that the Gemara seems to use this mitzva is a prototype of mitzvos that apply in or out of the land of Israel and at all times. Kiddushin 36b: ... As the poskim say: [Tur & SA YD 156:15] .... There is, however, the Ramban as brought in the Ritva in Kiddushin 37a, Regarding the halacha of Ibbud Avoda Zara, he says ... The Ramban, of course, learns that [the gemara] only meant that the issur to worship Avoda Zara applies in and outside the land, but the mitzva to destroy it does not. True, the Sefer Hamikneh there wants to learn the Ramban as distinguishing between the chiyuv inside and outside Eretz Yisrael only as far as [lsharesh achareha], but it's hard to see that in the Ramban. ... The Ramban is slightly similar to the Rambam in that they both hold ... mitzva to destroy Avoda Zara, inside or outside Eretz Yisrael. However, I'm not sure the mitzva trumps property rights. It is possible that if the AZ belongs to someone, you would not be allowed to destroy it. Also, bittul would be mattir, and the bittul could be done by any non-Jew, (although perhaps not a Muslim, who has no shaychus to Avoda Zara.) And I'm sure the mitzva does not trump the need to live at peace with the nations of the world, certainly the nations that are helpful to us. The time that we could blithely antagonize everyone was very brief and that certainly does not pertain today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 08:20:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:20:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. Any thoughts? "Ohr Maqif to enter between the two articles of clothing. As such, the Qelipoth are not chased away from there. Memory issues are caused by the Qelipoth and that is why we must be particular not to put on two articles of clothing at the same time." Rabbi: Let's review this quote from the Ari: + Clothing is made from a holy source + Sins create Qelipoth, "husks of a bad source" that attach to clothing + Clothes have a surrounding light + This light chases away Qelipoth + Donning 2 garments simultaneously blocks the light and traps these Qelipoth near the person which harms memory That's quite a theory! Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. People are insecure. This belief provides some imaginary access to an "energy" that might protect a person in some manner. But God does not wish that man live in a fantasy world. For fantasies are of the same germ as idolatry, where a person imagines a power to exist, but without evidence. And again, God desires we base our lives on evidence. Our greatest teachers -- Moses and Maimonides -- stress that we trust our senses: Moses said: "Guard yourselves and guard your souls exceedingly, lest you forget the things your eyes saw...(Deut. 4:9)" "All the signs and wonders which God has performed for you in Egypt as your eyes have seen (Deut. 4:34)." "You have been demonstrated to know that God is Elokim, there is no other besides Him (Deut. 4:35)." "From the heavens He made heard His voice to prove you, and on land He showed you His great fire and His words you heard from amidst the fire (Deut. 4:36)." Maimonides said: "It is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things: "1) clear proof deriving from man's reasoning; "2) what is perceived through one of the five senses; "3) what is received from the prophets or from the righteous. "Every reasonable man ought to distinguish in his mind and thought all the things that he accepts as trustworthy , and say: 'This I accept as trustworthy because of tradition, and this because of sense-perception, and this on grounds of reason.' Anyone who accepts as trustworthy anything that is not of these three species, of him it is said: 'The simple believes everything (Proverbs 14:15)'." Maimonides' "Letter to the Community of Marseille" As Moses taught, Torah is the authoritative source of God's truth, and nowhere in Torah, Prophets or Writings are such delusional notions suggested. Moses stressed we are to trust our senses, and reject what we do not sense. We must reject what was stated above in the name of the Ari. God is the only source of our fate...no other powers exist. This quote you provided suggests otherwise. Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. I wonder if people would believe that when eating 2 foods at once, a new power is generat- ed, a new light, that mystically secures enormous wealth, and that we can leave our jobs. This would prove to any intelligent person that they truly do not believe such nonsense. This quote is harmful, for it rejects God's will that we adhere to natural design, it opens the door to idolatrous thought, and it rejects God's system of justice. "Jewish" Mysticism Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim. Thus, Judaism -- a religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Aug 26 13:15:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:15:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg Message-ID: R' Simon Montagu asked: >>> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way > to follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave > oven under various circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby > the wrapping can be pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape > and still be considered well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? There is a brand of frozen meals called "Mon Cuisine". I haven't eaten them in a while, but it was a major portion of my diet when I used to travel on business. The frozen food is in a black plastic tray, covered with a thin plastic film, and all that is in a sealed cardboard box. For many of these items (especially my favorites, such as the Vegetarian Breaded Chicken Style Cutlet), the Microwave Cooking instructions explicitly say "Do not puncture film." I don't if this is still on the label, but I remember an additional notice on the box, the for a kosher consumer, one can simply place the entire box in any (i.e., even a non-kosher) microwave, and cook it as per the label instructions. And so I did, many many times. Yes, the air inside the package, between the food and the film, did heat up. It was not unusual for it to break the film, and some gravy might even splatter on the inside of the box. My understanding is that this sort of eventuality is exactly why the halacha prescribes *double* wrapping: To prevent the treif steam of the oven from coming back into the kosher food. Even if the steam escapes from the first wrapping, it will be stopped by the second wrapper, and it will not be able to bring any taam issur back into the food. Those more knowledgeable than me can comment on the halachos involved. The main thing I want to say is that if one is careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions, then yes, one CAN follow the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven. Another example would be microwave popcorn, which is sold in sealed bags. I concede that one CAN smell the popcorn while it is cooking, which would suggest that steam is getting out of the bag. But I don't think the halacha requires the container to be so tightly sealed as to make that impossible; my evidence is that a pot of soup is considered adequately covered as long as the pot cover is on it, despite my ability to smell the soup. Anyway, if one puts that bag of popcorn inside a larger paper bag -- and it is already open so that the popcorn will have room to inflate -- then I think it would be okay. I even did this a couple of times, but it was just too cumbersome in a practical sense. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 03:17:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:17:34 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Safety warning re: microwave Pareve Fleisihg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A) It is not necessary to double wrap or even single wrap or even cover any food heated or cooked in a microwave oven even an oven used for non-Kosher. There is no intense cloud of heated steam to ever connect the food to the walls of the oven. Therefore the walls are never connected to the food heated in the oven. The Kashrus issue is limited to the platter-turntable which is likely to be contaminated by boil-overs which are not uncommon in microwave ovens. The solution is easy, use a disposable or a dedicated microwave safe platter for your Kosher, or milk or dairy foods. B) if you prefer to, you may cover the food being heated with a loose cover that permits escape of steam, or wrap it slash out pierce the wrapping to permit steam to escape. Their is certainly only a one way link that guarantees the Kashrus integrity of the wrapped food. On 26 Aug 2016 9:22 PM, "Simon Montagu" wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 3:07 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah < > avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > >> >> DO NOT EVER enclose foods in closed bags in a microwave oven. >> > > (Hopefully this is back on topic in spite of the moderator's warning) > > Sakanta hamira me'isura, so does this mean that there is no way to follow > the pesak that requires double wrapping in a microwave oven under various > circumstances? Or is there a middle path whereby the wrapping can be > pierced sufficiently to allow steam to escape and still be considered > well-wrapped enough to prevent NTbNT? > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 07:36:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 00:36:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Evaluating Nezek nowadays without slave markets In-Reply-To: References: <6ab6a8bf-0dda-4ce5-4fbe-0c93a2c16f89@sero.name> Message-ID: If I slash the tyres of my business rival [or lock him or her in a room] which prevents them from attending a business presentation thereby losing a contract which I gain, that loss is Gerama. So BD can compel me to pay for the slashed tyres but not more, which is why I may prefer to lock them in a room. When the soccer player loses his ability to play because someone broke his leg, BD cannot force payment of his future earnings, that is Gerama. Therefore as mentioned earlier, Nezek is NOT COMPENSATION for lost future earning or life pleasure. As to the Q - Why should the victim suffer any of the loss? That is the system HKBH arranged. One may as well ask why is the guy who throws a spear and then removes the shield protecting the victim deemed to be a Gorem and not a murderer? BD can only force payment for what the soccer player actually has in his hand, i.e. what his potential future earnings are worth right now TO OTHER PEOPLE. Because other people [slave buyers, investment opportunists] are the ones who will be paying him for that IF they were buying him right now as a slave i.e. for his future earnings. These days the investment market is well equipped to evaluate the potential earnings and all the risks associated with a soccer player or racing car driver or golf player or concert pianist and compare that to any other investment and the potential returns and risks, including the risk that the soccer player may not willingly co-operate or perhaps suffer depression. This investment NEVER calculates every penny the subject will ever earn. As for the argument - once paid a lump sum, reflecting the present value of his potential future earnings, he has no reason ever to work again - the question actually misses the point. All that risk is INCLUDED in the evaluation of the investors. The market compensates for that risk and it is PART of the Nezek formula. People work for many reasons - Ask any Gevir why they continue working? BD is not capable of evaluating what is to be paid for Piyus. Only the victim and his friends can do that. That is why the Din BALeChaVeiro requires that the aggressor appease the victim via a non BD procedure by appealing directly to the victim and via the victims friends. That is the process of taking a Shura of friends to the victim - the friends agree that what the aggressor is offering is sincere and reasonable and the victim, their friend should accept it. Once the aggressor has brought 3 friends three times and the victim refuses to accept the offer, the aggressor need do no more. The only reason that BD may today consider permitting a victim to take his Jewish aggressor to the nonJ court is that they no longer exercise or have tools to pressure such out of court resolution as they had in days gone bye. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:00:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 22:00:01 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828020001.GA5544@aishdas.org> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 11:20:50AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote: : I find the following fascinating. It is by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim, an : orthodox rabbi who puts out a publication called Mesora. He actually says : that Kabala is alien to Judaism and that Judaism contains no mysticism. : Any thoughts? First, he goes by something else in real life; I am in general suspicious of people who don't stand by their opinion. But.... ... : Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God granted : man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses tell you is : real, which by definition means God desires we reject what we don't : perceive... So, no miracles, no prophecy. Got it. ` ... : Reward and Punishment is a primary Torah fundamental. If we follow God's : Torah, it is antithetical to His system of justice that we are harmed : by such innocuous actions of donning 2 garments at once. The point as stands doesn't work. After all, it is no more antithetical to His system of justice than the fact that we are harmed by such innocuous actions as letting go of a rock when one's foot is underneath. I have repeatedly asked here the next question: But then, what's the function? Physics has an obvious function -- free will is meaningless if we cannot forecast the results of our actions. But when the system of causality is itself mysterious and requiring faith? However, many schools of Qabbalah (eg the Ramchal) understand all of the Ari's mystical language to be a symbolic system rather than a discussion of real ontologies. : "Jewish" Mysticism : Mysticism refers to 1) the notion of causal relationships, or 2) the : imagined existence of things, when in either case, there is no support- : ing evidence, nor does reason comply with the claim... Actually, "mysticism" refers to finding meaning in the fact that we cannot understand everything. The rationalist finds meaning in the aspects of how G-d runs the world that we can understand; the mystic -- from knowing how much is greater than our comprehension. : Thus, Judaism -- a : religion synonymous with reason and proof, and not founded on belief or : faith like all others -- truly contains no mysticism. Whatever today is : called "Jewish mysticism" is in fact alien cultural influence adopted by : "Jews," but in no way is mysticism part of "Judaism" -- it is not found : in the Bible, Prophets or Writings, or Talmud, our fundamen- tals sources. So, his gemara has no mention of ayin hara, astrology or sheidim? >From Berakhos 55b: If a man on going into a town is afraid of the ayin hara, let him take the thumb of his right hand in his left hand and the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and say: I, so-and-so, am of the descendents of Yoseif over which the ayin hara has no power, as it says: "Yoseif is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain." Look, I am not comfortable with these ideas either, and tend to explain them away. But again, we're the ones who carry the burden of proof. This claim that he is making here is just denying what's really there. : If you search Mesora.org (www.mesora.org/search) you can locate : explanations of such Biblical stories, like Bilam and the donkey that : spoke, Saul and the witch, Rava creating a man, and other metaphors that : the Rabbis scripted as riddles and subtle lessons. Ah, so it /is/ mentioned after all, you just have exaplanations... I have a severe problem with his denying the validity of other approache to the gemara. If I have to choose between the Bahir, the Ramban, etc... or the author of Mesora.org, I know which I would pick. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow micha at aishdas.org man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries http://www.aishdas.org about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 19:48:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 02:48:11 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall Message-ID: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> I'm looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Aug 27 20:07:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 23:07:16 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall In-Reply-To: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2bbebd77e43a41a5a3b079cd76fa8234@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/16 22:48, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: > I?m looking for citations of why such a seat is considered honorific. Because it's in the front (in European shuls, which face east). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:28:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:28:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> >From the article with this title at http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf that appeared in Hakirah Volume 2 Fall 2005. Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it does. And even more, over a seven-and-one-half-year period, the Daf Yomi learner will have accomplished the ideal of having completed the entire Torah She-be'al Peh (or at least the entire Bavli). However, the current method of Daf Yomi, as practiced by many, of covering an entire daf in a single hour and then not reviewing that daf until the next cycle, seven and a half years later, is clearly not the ideal type of Talmud Torah. It is impossible for most people to properly analyze and understand two sides of Gemara in a single hour. It is even less likely that the concepts contained in the daf will sink into one's mind and be remembered the day after tomorrow. Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to remember all that one has learned." Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud Torah. Ideally, they will find this new type of study more rewarding and it will enable them to grow in learning. Then, perhaps, they will be motivated to set aside even more time for Talmud Torah. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 15:15:02 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning Message-ID: <1472397301742.29793@stevens.edu> Please the article NEW! Hakirah, Volume 21 Talmud Study: From Proficiency to Meaning (download the complete article) by: Yehuda Brandes, president of Herzog College in Gush Etzion. He is the former head of the Beit Midrash at Beit Morasha in Jerusalem and the author of many books and articles on Talmud, Jewish law, education and Jewish philosophy. I sent the following email to the editor of Hakirah In his article Talmud Study:From Proficiency to Meaning (Volume 21) Yehuda Brandes writes: This look at the commentaries of the Rishonim on Hazal's division of fields of knowledge in study explains the Mishnah's discussion in Pirqei 'Avot of the appropriate age to begin each type of study. Five years of age for the study of Miqra-this is the stage in the child's development in which one can begin to teach him to read; in these years one should focus on teaching Miqra according to the cognitive and emotional abilities of the child. Ten years of age for the study of Mishna-this is a stage in a child's development in which he is capable of reviewing knowledge and retaining it. This is after he has already acquired basic skills of reading comprehension in the first years of elementary school. Fifteen years of age for the study of Talmud-this is a stage of emotional and cognitive development in which it is appropriate to begin dealing with analysis, critical thinking, and in-depth study. As pointed out by many scholars who dealt with the curriculum in institutions of Jewish learning, study which does not follow this order, and which is not tailored to the specific level and abilities of the individual student, is inefficient and even harmful. Is not the child of today raised in today's milieu different in many ways from a child raised 100 years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, etc.? I would contend that these differences affect the ways that children learn today. In my experience of teaching college mathematics for many years, I noted considerable differences in learning between the students I encountered in 1968 and those that I taught in 2014. Given this, I find it hard to believe that there are not huge differences in the nature of the students that the learning program described above was aimed at and today's students. Thus, I have to ask, should we be applying the guidelines above to today's students? Let me point out that the recommendation "shemone esrei l'chupa" for young men is widely ignored today by much of the Orthodox world, including the right-wing yeshiva world. Why? Is it not because to a large extent the nature of the 18 year-old of today is considerably different than that of the 18 year-old in the time of Chazal? If so, then doesn't the same apply to the nature of younger yeshiva students? Prof. Yitzchok Levine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 11:05:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 14:05:05 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : From the article with this title at : http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf : :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah, taharah or qedushah. Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the rampant flight to heresy. The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE. The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP, halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning, because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros, just to do applied halakhah. But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this -- presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them, and halevai they keep to it. "Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!" ... : Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically : supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the : obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to : remember all that one has learned." when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions -- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah, not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions, rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is our choices...that show what we truly are, micha at aishdas.org far more than our abilities. http://www.aishdas.org - J. K. Rowling Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 09:59:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 12:59:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> Message-ID: On 28/08/16 11:28, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: > Perhaps those who have only an hour to study each day > should investigate other types of learning that they can enjoy16 and > which do fulfill the requirements for the ultimate form of Talmud > Torah. In other words, "In the time that he learns daf yomi, he could have learned a blatt gemoro!" -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 16:10:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 19:10:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54am +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. : The Gemara says that the takana was made so that people would not go 3 days : without Torah based on the pasuk vayelchu shloshes yamim bamidbar vlo matzu : mayim. : I am having trouble understanding this takana. They didn't learn Torah in : the midbar? Without this takana people would just sit and waste the day and : not learn any Torah? ... Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about previous generations and how much /they/ learned? If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least 3 pesuqim. Or maybe AKhG simply felt that learning the same verses every day wasn't broad enough exposure, and they wante to force more of a survey of the text. Enough to get some conversations going. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:44:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:44:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] blinded by the light? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828224440.GB32121@aishdas.org> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : There's a fascinating Ran on the Gemara in Kiddushin 31a concerning : R'Yosef being blind in which he states that R'Yosef blinded himself so : as not to have to see things outside of his 4 amot.. "Venistama hava" means he blinded himself? The hitpa'el of "nistama" would imply as much, but "hava" refers to a state, not an event, no? : Even if : not chovel, should/may one do something which limits his ability to do : mitzvoth (any Torah ones perhaps)? The gemara he is commenting on is about his joy on learning that a blind person is still a bar chiyuva. Meaning, before he was blind, back when he thought being blinded would remove one's chiyuvim, he chose being removed from his ability to do ANY mitzvos as a metzuveh ve'oseh in order not to be distracted by seeing the wrong thing? That would yeild a fascinating hashkafic point. Anyway, Rabbeinu Gershom at the end of Menachos says that R' Yosef and R Sheishes followed R' Shimi's practice of staring at the ground, and it blinded them. HaMiqra vehaMesorah (pg 14, #3) quotes a Zohar that they blinded themselves by staying in the dark for 40 days and afterwards looked at avnei shayish. They were trying to eliminate their far-sight, so that they would only see what they intentionally tried to look at, and accidentally blinded themselves altogether. (Shayish is usually translated as marble or alabaster, perhaps the meaning here is to the glare off the stone's whiteness when well lit?) Either way, it was either unintentional, or not entirely intentional. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Every child comes with the message micha at aishdas.org that God is not yet discouraged with http://www.aishdas.org humanity. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabindranath Tagore From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 15:26:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 18:26:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] How to teach emuna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160828222613.GA32121@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 11:26:19AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Actually if you look in Tanach the revelation at Sinai is basically ignored : until Nechemia. The Neviim while mentioning yetzias mitzrayim never mention : matan torah at Har Sinai... It : seems that this was not the foundational event that the Kuzari proof claims : it was. There are two positions I would want to keep distinct: 1- The appeal to tradition, which I believe was R' Yehudah haLevi's intent. and 2- The Kuzari Principle, which is a 20th cent converson of the Kuzari's point into something more rigorous philosophically by trying to prove that such traditions can't be faked. Or that even claiming a National Revalation is a globally unique tradition. And the like. In the Kuzari (1:11), the chaver defines his Deity as "E-lokei Avraham, Yitzchaq veYaaqov" who took the Jews out of Mitzrayim with osos and mofesim, fed them in the Midbar, apportioned them the land of Kenaan, sent them Moshe with His Torah, and after him thousands of nevi'im... Maamud Har Sinai and its national nature don't get mention until 1:87, discussing the meaning of Shabbos. ... They also saw Moses enter it and emerge from it; they distinctly heard the Ten Commandments, which represent the very essence of the Law. One of them is the ordination of Sabbath, a law which had previously been connected with the gift of the Manna. The people did not receive these ten commandments from single individuals, nor from a prophet, but from God, only they did not possess the strength of Moses to bear the grandeur of the scene. Henceforth the people believed that Moses held direct communication with God, that his words were not creations of his own mind, that prophecy did not (as philosophers assume) burst forth in a pure soul, become united with the Active Intellect (also termed Holy Spirit or Gabriel), and be then inspired. They did not believe Moses had seen a vision in sleep, or that some one had spoken with him between sleeping and waking, so that he only heard the words in fancy, but not with his ears, that he saw a phantom, and afterwards pretended that God had spoken with him. Before such an impressive scene all ideas of jugglery vanished. The divine allocution was followed by the divine writing.... I would say Rihal finds a role in national revelation to buttress our belief in the Divine origin of the Torah, but not G-d's existence to begin with. Apiqursus -- denial of creation; meenus -- denial of personal or national redemption; kefiah -- denial of revalation. Maamad Har Sinai is the bullwark against kefirah. In Shemos 19:9 Hashem does say that He will be speaking to Moshe with everyone in the audience "vegam bekha ya'aminu le'olam". So it seems Ma'amad Yar Sinai was designed to be a cornerstone of our faith (but I would not necessarily say in the KP sense), in that Torah miSinai is indeed a cornerstone. Similarly Devarim 5:8-10, "Umi goy gadol asher lo chuqim umishpatim ... Hishamer lekha ... pen tishkach es hadevarim asher ra'u einekha ... Yom ashe amadta lifnei H' Elokeikha bechoreiv..." Which would mean that nevi'im, who are trying to evince basic mentchlachkeit and monotheism out of the masses wouldn't need to invoke Har Sinai. That's only for people whose message is "... so follow halakhah already"! Their message was more Avraham's than Moshe's. In contrast to an introduction to mishnah, where the point is belief that all the complexity of halakahh is from G-d. There wone would expect something like, "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai, umaserah liYhoshua..." Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 19:29:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2016 22:29:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Kabbala Fact or Fancy? Message-ID: Cantor Wolberg wrote: > Let's learn from God's actions to determine the truth here. God > granted man senses. His will is clear: accept what your senses > tell you is real, which by definition means God desires we reject > what we don't perceive. Thus, God does not wish we imagine a > bridge to be sitting before a high cliff, and that we continue > driving to our death. God wishes instead, that we accept our > senses, that there is no bridge, and that we drive in another > direction. All 5 principles in the quote above violate God's > will, as they ask us to blindly accept nonsensical ideas. I see no requirement to "reject what we don't perceive". We should indeed reject that which goes *against* logic, but that is very different from that which we merely "don't perceive". If we were to reject things merely because we don't perceive them, then we should have rejected heliocentrism, germs, and quantum physics. And many *did* reject them. But after much research and time, evidence was found and these "nonsensical ideas" became widely accepted. Who knows if someday we may find a basis for the ideas that Cantor Wolberg feels should be rejected? On the other hand, if anyone knows of a double-blind study, in which randomized groups of people did and did not eat fish and meat together, or randomized groups of pregnant women who did and did not step on cut fingernails, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of such studies. Of course, those studies would have to consider mitigating factors; if a person committed the supposedly dangerous act, but suffered no ill consequences because of whatever zechuyos, that would certainly skew the research. Until such research is done, how dare we say that these ideas are nonsensical? I will certainly agree that I do not understand how these causes lead to those effects, but until Isaac Newton, we didn't really understand why apples fall either. And maybe even since then. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:40:27 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> From: Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org : However, Rav Schachter said that : there is reason to be lenient with regard to kashering a conventional : oven. In a conventional oven, the food is always placed in pans and : does not directly touch the surfaces of the oven. 1- How often do people put food directly in the microwave without a plate? -- Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org >>>> In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use the glass tray of the appropriate gender. Also, cover the food with some plastic wrap or one of those plastic covers that are made to be used in the microwave. My microwave oven is spotless, nothing ever splashes or explodes in it. If anything ever spills, it just spills onto the glass tray. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Aug 28 22:14:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:14:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> References: <20160828231054.GA17906@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Monday, August 29, 2016, Micha Berger wrote: > But in any case, Ezra didn't make the taqanah then. The taqanah waiting > for Ezra implies that it was /his/ generation that had too many men > going three days without learning. Why would this imply anything about > previous generations and how much /they/ learned? > If anything, it raises questions about why the Sanhedrin didn't feel > a need during Menashe's rule. Maybe they thought it would be pointles. > Maybe in those days, enough people did indeed say Qeri'as Shema to not > need another enactment. Maybe the whole point of the taqanah was to > get peer pressure pushing people to open a seifer Torah for at least > 3 pesuqim. The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > Well, not Torah sheBikhsav. Until Arvos Moreh Moshe at most had megillos > of what would someday be combined (appended together? redacted?) into > the Torah, and some tannaim hold we didn't get /any/ Torah until then. So > there wasn't a seifer Torah to read from yet. While your point sounds good, the Gemara states (see the Rambam hilchos tefila 12:1) that Moshe Rabenu (or very early Neviim) was mesaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays. This reminds me of something I saw about tefillin in the midbar. I had always assumed that after the Jews got the Torah of course they started wearing tefillin, after all it is one of the 613 mitzvos. However, it is not so simple. Tefillin have to have the 4 parshiyos from the Torah placed within them. The Malbim makes the following fascinating point. There is a dispute between R' Yochanan and Resh Lakish whether the Torah was given Megilla Megilla or chasuma nitna. Rashi explains that megilla, megilla means that as soon as an event happened Moshe would write it down and after 40 years in the Midbar he put them all together and made a sefer torah. Resh Lakish holds that the Torah was only written down after 40 years in the midbar when it was finished. The Malbim says that according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna they didn't put on tefillin all 40 years because they didn't have the parshiyos yet while according to R' Yochanan they did once the 4 parshiyos were written. However, the Chavatzelet Hasharon points out that there is an explicit medrash in Shir Hashirim that states that the Jews wore tefillin in the midbar and he discusses additional sources relating to this question. This is very similar to the point that you are making. Certainly according to Resh Lakish who holds that Torah chasuma nitna, how could Moshe Rabenu have been misaken krias hatorah on Mondays and Thursdays, what did they read? And even according to R' Yochanan that megila megila what did they read from, there was no complete sefer torah yet? From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 04:43:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 14:43:04 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Rn T Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > In all the back-and-forth I have not seen anyone mention that the plate or > bowl of food is not placed directly on the floor of the microwave, but on a > glass tray. Even if the walls and ceiling do not become hot, the glass > tray becomes hot where the hot dish is sitting on it. But it is easy > enough to buy a spare glass tray at Target or Walmart. Put some red nail > polish on one glass tray and some blue nail polish on the other glass > tray. Whenever you warm something up in the microwave, be sure to use > the glass tray of the appropriate gender. > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 08:03:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:03:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <3d820.5718084.44f5a8d1@aol.com> In a message dated 8/29/2016 7:43:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, simon.montagu at gmail.com writes: Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same glassware for both meat and milk, but this case (assuming non-parev food is never directly on the glass plate) is like NTbNTbNTbNT, and hettera to boot, so it seems hardly necessary to have separate glass plates. >>>> Non-parev hot food is frequently on the glass plate because of spills. That's exactly why you need the glass plate and don't want to put your bowl or dish directly on the floor of the microwave. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 05:29:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:29:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent dies? --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 11:28:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:28:19 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <4E4162D1-C09B-4EE2-9E33-54C67C72B875@sibson.com> > Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a child and the parent See http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Kol tuv Joel rich > > _______________________________________________ > Avodah mailing list > Avodah at lists.aishdas.org > http://hybrid-web.global.blackspider.com/urlwrap/?q=AXicY2Rn0JnHwKAKxEU5lYYmGXrFRWV6uYmZOcn5eSVF-Tl6yfm5DKXmIR6BeQWOBpYG5qYmDFlFmckZDsWp6YlAVWAFGSUlBVb6-jmZxSXFeomZxRkpicV6-UXpYJHMvDSgqvRM_cSy_JTEDF0keQYIAABDkysw&Z THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:15:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:15:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <80293.6c44e3a.44f524cb@aol.com> Message-ID: On 29/08/16 07:43, Simon Montagu via Avodah wrote: > Why go to such trouble? Glass is neither bolea` nor polet. Only for Sefardim. Ashkenazim hold that glass is the same as ceramics, and not only is it bolea` and polet, but hag`ala doesn't help. > I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 12:20:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 14:51:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Harry Maryles via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 15:21:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550@aishdas.org> On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:55:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? In-Reply-To: <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> References: <1472398094781.67656@stevens.edu> <20160828180505.GD6678@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Aug 29 19:36:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 07:13:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> References: <7cc63865-d063-dc7f-af4e-f8bc5ccd92bc@starways.net> <20160829192041.GA27016@aishdas.org> <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8@sero.name> On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 06:16:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:27:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 11:39:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:06:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:30:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 12:46:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 13:17:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 22:42:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Aryeh Frimer via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I deal with the issue of Mourning an Abusive Parent in my Review of Joel Wolowelsky's book. "Review Essay: Insights into Mourning. A Review of Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky's The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning," Aryeh A. Frimer, Tradition, 44:4 (Winter 2011), pp. 41-46. PDF available online at http://traditionarchive.org/news/_pdfs/0041-0046.pdf. {The last note is a more recent addition}. I write as follows: Perhaps the toughest - and to my mind, the most controversial - issue discussed by Dr. Wolowelsky is the question of mourning an abusive parent. The waters here are very much unchartered and the author deserves much kudos for bringing the issue to the fore. Clearly, there are degrees of abuse, ranging from harsh language up to repeated sexual assault. The author in this volume argues that even in the latter case of sexual abuse the child should be encouraged to mourn the parent. This is basically because of a debt of gratitude and, hence, respect that the child owes the parent for bringing him/her into this world. But there are important psychological reasons as well, which the author delineates. That being said, it is made clear that if the mourning practice would be detrimental to the emotional or psychological well-being of the abused child, this mourning may be forgone. The many lines of reasoning - halakhic, philosophical and psychological - used by the author to buttress his position are beautifully interwoven and multifaceted. I have spoken to many psychologists who agree that "closure" is a central issue ? as Wolowelsky argues. But this requires a case?by-case determination. I would, however, like to focus in on two of the halakhic arguments presented by the author, with which I take issue. (1) Based on Massekhet Semakot (2:10), Maimonides (M.T., Hilkhot Avel, 1:10) and R. Joseph Caro (Shulhan Arukh, YD, 345:5) rule that one who deviates from the practices of the community ("ha-poresh mi-darkei tsibbur") is not to be mourned.[1] The category of poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is understood by the commentators to include those who regularly violate halakha. Indeed, Rema (YD, sec. 340:5) reiterates that one who "regularly violates Jewish law is not mourned." Nevertheless, normative practice nowadays is to mourn all, irrespective of their level of religious observance. This rule should be extended to the abuser as well. It would seem, however, to this reviewer, that the comparison is questionable if not improper. It is one thing to allow the community to honor an individual who may not be truly deserving; sadly, we do this all the time! It is totally a different matter to demand from the severely abused to pay homage to their unrepentant abuser ? parent or not.[2] Judaism disapproves of revenge, but it does not require or even advise turning the other cheek. Furthermore, the reason given for not generally invoking the category poresh mi-darkei tsibbur is because most non-observant Jews are tinokot she-nishbu - uneducated in, and insensitive to the significance of religious practice.[3] On the contrary, the majority secular Jewish society as a whole often belittles the importance of kiyyum ha-mitsvot. By contrast, sexual abuse of one's progeny is acknowledged by all as a heinous transgression of universal morality. An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done deliberately to outrage the community" (The Mind, p. 87), is creative - but without basis and support. (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (YD, 240:18, no. 20) who maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. In addition, airing serious abuse, rather than sweeping it under the carpet, will undoubtedly have a beneficial effect on the psychological well-being of the religious community as a whole;[5] the abused would be more willing to come forward for treatment and the abuser more rapidly exposed. Hence, such an act is certainly permitted, since it is le-to'elet (beneficial) and therapeutic.[6] As noted above, the question of mourning an abusive parent is a truly complex issue ? and unfortunately not one discussed at any length in published responsa. Much of the literature that is available are conference reports of the questions asked by religious psychologists from leading posekim ? but not the responsa of the posekim themselves. Surveying the recent rabbinic literature has revealed two responsa not mentioned by the author, one by Rabbi Joseph Alnekaveh[7] and another published by Makhon Erets Hemda.[8] Considering the complexity of this issue, it is perhaps not surprising that they come to opposing positions on whether the abused child should be encouraged to publicly mourn the abusing parent.[9] ________________________________ [1]. In actuality, Massekhet Semahot writes that "their brethren and relatives should wear white and ? rejoice." Maimonides modifies this slightly by writing "their brethren and other relatives?." It would seem clear that Maimonides added the word "other" specifically to include all relatives, including parents and offspring, in the prohibition of mourning ? contrary to Dr. Wolowelsky's suggestion (The Mind, top of p. 92). In addition, the term "bretheren" may refer to friends and distant relatives; see, for example: Genesis 13:8 and 19:6; Exodus 2:11; Judges 19:23. [2]. Regarding hazara bi-teshuva, R. Dovid Cohen (Congregation Gvul Yaavetz, Brooklyn) maintains the following. A person who behaved in a manner that made him a rasha cannot simply say to bet din: "I did teshuva, so now you are obliged to accept me as a witness." Similarly, a parent who was deemed a rasha cannot merely say to his child "I did teshuva, so now you are obligated to treat me with respect." In both cases the person has to demonstrate, to the bet din or to the child, over time and in a consistent and convincing manner, that he has sincerely repented. See: R. Dovid Cohen cited by Benzion Sorotzkin, "Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive," Parts 1-3, The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals - NEFESH News (2004), note 10 therein; available online at: http://www.drsorotzkin.com/honoring_abusive_parents.html. [3]. See, inter alia, R. Isaac Yosef, Yalkut Yosef, Hilkhot Bikur Holim ve-Avelut, sec. 16. [4]. (a) Seymour Hoffman, "Psychotherapy and Honoring Parents," Israel Journal of Psychiatry & Related Sciences, 38:2 (2001), 123-126. (b) Seymour Hoffman, "Halacha and Psychological Treatment Dilemmas and Conflicts, ASSIA ? Jewish Medical Ethics, 4:2 (2004), pp. 36-38; available online at: http://www.medethics.org.il/articles/JME/JMEB1/JMEB1.23.asp; (c) Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 4. [5]. See Benzion Sorotzkin, supra note 2 ? Addendum to part 1, citing R. Dovid Cohen. [6]. See the discussion in the references cited in note 6, supra. [7]. R. Joseph Alnekaveh, Kaddish al Av Akhzar, Makor Rishon, Dec, 29, 2009, p. 10 ? encourages mourning practices in the case of a very abusive father (abuse not stipulated). [8]. Responsa be-Mareh ha-Bazak, VII, sec. 83, pp. 247-249 ? the sexually abused daughter may refrain from mourning [9]. R. Eli Turkel (personal communication April 9, 2012) has informed me of a case of a father who had abandoned his family when his daughter was young. The latter did not want to sit shiva for her father and the psak that she received was that formally she had to sit shiva but there was no requirement for her to receive visitors. She was not sorry about his death and had no need for consolation. She simply posted an announcement that she was sitting shiva for her father, but had no hours for visiting. Recently (Nov. 25, 2012), Rabbi Samuel Shapiro, Rabbi of Kokhav Yair, discussed the case of a man that was abused sexually by his father when he was a child and bears tremendous anger against him. Although there is a three way dispute as to whether a son owes respect to a father who is a rasha, Rama rules that no respect is owed to the parent unless the latter repented. In this particular case, however, the child is the object of the wickedness; hence, the son is not to be expected to respect his father. See: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4311136,00.html. -------------------------------------------------- Dr. Aryeh A. Frimer Ethel and David Resnick Professor Emeritus of Active Oxygen Chemistry Chemistry Dept., Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan 5290002, ISRAEL E-mail (office): Aryeh.Frimer at biu.ac.il Homepage http://ch.biu.ac.il/frimer Tel: 972-3-5318610; Fax: 972-3-7384053 Tel Home: 972-8-9473819/9470834 E-mail (home): FrimerA at zahav.net.il Cellphone: 972-54-7540761 ________________________________ From: Avodah on behalf of via Avodah Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 11:18 PM To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org Subject: Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 Send Avodah mailing list submissions to avodah at lists.aishdas.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org You can reach the person managing the list at avodah-owner at lists.aishdas.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..." A list of common acronyms is available at http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/acronyms.cgi (They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.) Today's Topics: 1. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 2. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Harry Maryles via Avodah) 3. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Micha Berger via Avodah) 4. Re: Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 5. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah) 6. Re: aveilut for an abuser (Zev Sero via Avodah) 7. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) 8. Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 9. laws of nature (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 10. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 11. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Eli Turkel via Avodah) 12. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Zev Sero via Avodah) 13. Re: Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs (Micha Berger via Avodah) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:20:41 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Lisa Liel , Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829192041.GA27016 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: : Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a : child and the parent dies? I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. But I would think that the pesaq in the case you give might not have a general rule. What may be a piquach nefesh level sanity issue for one victim might not be for another. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A person must be very patient micha at aishdas.org even with himself. http://www.aishdas.org - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:51:20 +0000 (UTC) From: Harry Maryles via Avodah To: Micha Berger , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <2038859858.1771128.1472507480770 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" On Monday, August 29, 2016 3:59 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 03:29:49PM +0300, Lisa Liel via Avodah wrote: >: Do the laws of aveilut change at all if a parent sexually abuses a >: child and the parent dies? > I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, > and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav > Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah... My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus at all. Was he right? HM ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 18:21:03 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Harry Maryles Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <20160829222103.GC7550 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 09:51:20PM +0000, Harry Maryles wrote: : My son had a classmate (and good friend) in high school whose father : murdered his mother when he was a young child. His father went to jail. He : was raised by his grandmother and never spoke to his father again. When : his father died, he did not sit Shiva and and was not Noheg Aveilus : at all. : Was he right? In the Hakira article RJR pointed RJBW first discusses aveilus. He dismisses the emotional state of the aveil as a factor in the chiyuv. Citing RYBS as saying halakhah demands a full emotional control that may oftimes not actually be real. However, in the case where the aveilus would be traumatic to the victim, that chiyuv may be overridden. He also discusses aveilus for sinners -- porshim midrakhei tzibur (the Rambam's case), habitual sinners. The SA and Mordekhai say we do morn the occasional sinner, if acting letei'avon. But then moving on to the chiyuv of kavod, kibud av is not haqaras hatov. Famously, it is on the first luach because it's really a mitzvah BALM; how one treats the two partners in his birth whom he can see, impacts the kavod he gives the Third Partner whom he cannot. http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Wolowelsky.pdf Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's never too late micha at aishdas.org to become the person http://www.aishdas.org you might have been. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:55:47 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Professor L. Levine'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah? Message-ID: <02bc01d2026a$02cb1be0$086153a0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R' YL: :> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of :> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount :> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have :> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it :> does... R'MB: As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means that more gemara is really being learned than ever before. In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global synchronization. ----------------------------- While I don't doubt that R' YL is correct in a perfect world, in an imperfect world Daf Yomi is going to be the catalyst for many people who otherwise wouldn't learn. Just the social aspect is significant, but the built in deadline is crucial to making people want to keep up and not skip even one day. But I want to add one thing to R' MB's list of benefits that Daf Yomi has. The Gemara (Berachos 6b) says that the reward people receive for going the a derashah is because they ran there - not because of the learning they did there. Rashi explains that they don't receive reward for the learning itself because "most of them don't understand in a way that they can maintain the text and repeat the halachah in the name of their teacher after a while." So this is certainly not a new issue. That said, no one in the time of the Gemara advocated stopping giving shiurim TTBOMK, or that people stop going to the derashah and learn a different way. I think we can conclude from this that the going itself is significant enough of a benefit that one should still do it. On a personal level, I have a lot of hesitation when anyone has taanos on anyone learning in any way that's not clearly against halachah. You want to sit in Bermuda shorts in a hot tub and learn? You want to lie on the couch on learn? You want to learn on Nittel Nacht? You want to rely on those who say that you can learn on 9 Av that comes out on Shabbos even after chatzos? You want to learn while you sip a martini? You want to learn daf yomi? Go ahead. Learn. You keep on learning and learning and everything else will sort itself out. KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 22:36:26 -0400 From: Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah To: "'Micha Berger'" , "'The Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" , "'Lisa Liel'" , "'Avodah Torah Discussion Group'" Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <02b801d20267$4e58dfa0$eb0a9ee0$@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" R'MB: I have a friend, slighly different case. The child was not the victim, and the father's violence was not expressed sexually. He was told by Rav Reuven Feinstein that he was obligated to sit shiv'ah. But I must confess, it was far from a somber shiv'ah house. The whole experience was weird. ----------------------------- Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) KT, MYG ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:13:11 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Moshe Yehuda Gluck , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: <3383735f-8eb6-6867-5e28-3e7279a541a8 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 29/08/16 22:36, Moshe Yehuda Gluck via Avodah wrote: > (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards > to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the > spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) In most cases an agunah would be receiving a shmua rechoka, so she would only sit for a short time. But yes, if she gets a shmua krova she'd have to sit a whole shiva, and wonder at the irony. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:16:10 +0000 From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" To: "avodah at aishdas.org" Subject: [Avodah] Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Message-ID: <1472562957841.59665 at stevens.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >From today's OU Kosher Halacha Yomis. Some hot milk spilled on my fleishig counter and I would like to kasher it. Can I boil the kashering water in my microwave and then pour it over that spot? A. The general rule that governs kashering is k'bolo kach polto (the method that was utilized to absorb is the same one that is needed to purge). Since the counter became non-kosher by having hot milk spill on it, one may kasher by pouring boiling water over that area. However, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 452:5) writes that if the non-kosher item (or, in this case, the milk) was heated by fire, the kashering water must also be heated by fire. Therefore, one may not kasher utensils that became non-kosher through fire in a hot spring. This is true even if the water in the spring is equally hot (boiling). Since a microwave oven heats water without fire, it has the same limitation as water from a hot spring, and cannot be used in place of water heated by a fire. If however, the hot milk that spilled on the counter was also heated in a microwave, then the microwave can be used to heat the water for kashering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:27:25 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" <<> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same > glassware for both meat and milk, This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. >> Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig and fleishig meals from Rav Heineman *BEVERAGE GLASSES**Q: Can one use the same glass beverage glasses for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes. *Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages?* *A: *Yes. *WHISKEY GLASSES**Q: Can the same whiskey glasses be used for both dairy and meat meals?* *A: *Yes see http://www.star-k.org/articles/articles/1162/a-crystal-clear-halachic-approach-to-glass/ -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:39:47 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Avodah Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I just finished reading the book QED (quantum electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman who received a Nobel prize for his part in the theory He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more strange. In the calculations .while includes an electron emitting an photon and then reabsorbing the same photon. A photon can create an electron and positron and then annihilate themselves to create a photon etc. He stresses that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". There are those that claim that there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result. Feynman would claim that such a claim is irrelevant (perhaps true but irrelevant) 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would prove or disprove the assertion 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so is irrelevant for physics. One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines everything in the world using their super-super computer. Note the same argument applies to those that argue that the world is some 5700 years and was created so that it looks older. Again it can never be tested and can never help any measurement. One can equally well believe the world was created 200 years to look older. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another matter Feynman was considered a genius among Nobel prize winners. However, some of his actions were quite immoral showing that there is no connection between brilliance and morality -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:06:48 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6 at sero.name> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed On 30/08/16 14:27, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >>> I understand that some people are mahmir not to use the same >>> glassware for both meat and milk, >> This is not a chumra. It's ikar hadin, according to Ashkenazim. > Common practice is to use the same drinking glasses for both milchig > and fleishig meals For Ashkenazim there is no difference between glass and ceramics. Drinking glasses are always used cold, so it doesn't matter what they're made of. They could be ceramic or metal and they'd still be usable at both kinds of meals, so long as they're clean. If he's permitting them to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, let alone putting meat in the glass. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 11 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 22:30:42 +0300 From: Eli Turkel via Avodah To: Zev Sero Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="cp1255" > If he's permitting them > to be used for hot drinks as well, he's assuming that we're talking about > hot pareve tea *after* the meal; the tea is parev, and there's no meat or > milk to be nivla` at one meal and niflat at the other. I doubt he'd permit > a glass used for milchig coffee to be used for hot tea *while* eating meat, > let alone putting meat in the glass. > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire Just to be clear Rav Heineman writes Q: Is china glass? A: It is customary to consider it as earthenware. Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. Q: Can these glasses be used for both hot and cold beverages? A: Yes. Q: Can other glass dishes, such as salad bowls or casseroles, be used for both dairy and meat meals? A: If the food is cold, or the glass dish is used as a Kli Sheini, it may be used for both dairy and meat meals. Unless it is used on the oven or range, a Kli Sheini is okay. In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. For a real psak someone can contact Rav Heineman -- Eli Turkel ------------------------------ Message: 12 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:46:20 -0400 From: Zev Sero via Avodah To: Eli Turkel Cc: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 30/08/16 15:30, Eli Turkel wrote: > > In my experience most ashkenazim use the same glass for milk at a > milchig meal and then wash the glass and use it for hot tea at > (during) a fleishig meal. I doubt if people put in meat into a > drinking glass. None of my friends drink hot milk. The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo doesn't help. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis ------------------------------ Message: 13 Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 16:17:15 -0400 From: Micha Berger via Avodah To: Zev Sero , The Avodah Torah Discussion Group Cc: Eli Turkel Subject: Re: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs Message-ID: <20160830201715.GC6111 at aishdas.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 03:46:20PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote: : The Ramo says clearly that glass is earthenware, and even hag`olo : doesn't help. ... for chameitz. It is noted that he does not repeat the same thing in YD. (Eg Peri Megadim (OC 451 MZ 31 "dad", YD 105 MZ 1 "ve'im"). The Minchas Yitzcoq (shu"t 1:86) therefore says that hag'alah would work -- so not as meiqil as the Mechaber, but still, not keli chares. The AhS YD 121:2 says that one may buy used glassware from a non-Jew as long as they are washed and scrubbed well, "lefi shehein chalaqim ve'einam bol'im". I find no chiddush in R' Heineman holding like the AhS. However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common use of pyrex and the like. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Avodah mailing list Avodah at lists.aishdas.org http://www.aishdas.org/avodah http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org ------------------------------ End of Avodah Digest, Vol 34, Issue 105 *************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Aug 30 23:46:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:46:36 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: > However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein > bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon > cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common > use of pyrex and the like. again from Rav Heineman Q: Is corningware glass? A: No, it is like china. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 03:23:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 06:23:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Using an oven for both fleishigs and milchigs In-Reply-To: References: <5cab1c78-58ba-2120-942b-184e3a57f9f6@sero.name> <20160830201715.GC6111@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160831102335.GC23891@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 09:46:36AM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote: : On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:17 PM, Micha Berger wrote: :> However, se'if 9 discussing cooking utensils says that keli zekhukhis ein :> bahem tashmish bechamin. So if glass were usable as actual keli rishon :> cookware, perhaps he would be machmir. But the AhS predated the common :> use of pyrex and the like. : again from Rav Heineman :> Q: Is corningware glass? :> A: No, it is like china. But even though corningware and pyrex are both inventions of Corning Inc, I would not say it is "and the like". Pyrex is a borosilicate glass. As opposed to the usual glass, which is sode-lime glass. Regular glass expands when heated, and is a poor conductor of heat. So, when you heat up one side, it epands diginicantly faster than the rest, and as a result, your keli shatters. By replacing sodium with boron in the formula, they lower the expansion coefficient. The resulting keli therefore doesn't shatter when heated, and is therefore usable for beakers to be placed atop bunsen burners, or pots to be placed on stoves or ovens. It really is glass, a non-porous mostly melted-silicon thing. Corningware (identical to Europe's "Pyroflam") is a glass-ceramic. Meaning, it glass that is reheated and parts are allowed to crystallize. A different resulting structure than actual glass. Arguing that corningware is partly ceramic and therefore a keli cheres is much simpler. And then one gets into the question as to whether one should treat a non-porous keli cheres like other cheres. A question resolved lechumera earlier, with porcelain. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When we are no longer able to change a situation micha at aishdas.org -- just think of an incurable disease such as http://www.aishdas.org inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change Fax: (270) 514-1507 ourselves. - Victor Frankl (MSfM) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 04:18:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 07:18:22 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The takana of krias hatorah on Monday and Thursday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160831111822.GA22850@aishdas.org> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : Todays daf (Bava Kama 82a) discusses the takanos of Ezra and one of the : takanas mentioned is that of reading the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays. On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:14:41AM +0300, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: : The Gemara states that Moshe made the original Takana of 3 pesukim and : Ezra expanded it. So this Takana already existed at the time of Menashe : that they would read the Torah on Mondays and Thursday's. In fact it : existed in the midbar because Moshe made it. Actually, see the MB 135:0 (intro to se'if 135). It is a machloqes as to whether Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah were part of the original taqanah or part of the addition. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 08:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:17:47 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> MYG... A man receives a heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they haven't been in contact for years.) 2 points. It was perfectly normal for a man (before r'gershon, or for Sephardim) to sit shiva for a wife, while still married to other wives In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 10:40:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:40:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser In-Reply-To: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> References: <03b801d2039a$d51bedf0$7f53c9d0$@com> Message-ID: <83b7d474-72b4-a90e-e0b0-98b844797fd5@sero.name> On 31/08/16 11:17, M Cohen wrote: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and refused to do so > he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva would be required. In the normal case of an agunah he's not a rasha at all. In most cases he's been dead all along. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 13:22:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:22:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pesukim LeShemos Anoshim In-Reply-To: References: <40B6E0B4-6815-42A2-97FA-485439F06FCE@gmail.com> <20786e3f-6690-a5f4-27d8-e604efc36041@sero.name> <8A409498-2279-45A4-99E8-E0CEE3D7BD07@balb.in> <41490268-0138-4D3F-8BA1-0BBE9C3B6007@balb.in> <0b98bd77-9d42-cb67-852b-51d53d26be6d@sero.name> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 PM, Isaac Balbin wrote: > I did see someone claim the Hebrew word Chanun has the same meaning as > the Yiddish [Zelig] but that is news to me and I'm skeptical. > > If someone has access to Bar Ilan I'd be interested to see the hits on > Zelik vs Zelig. > > I always thought it was ??? because I came across "Usher Zelig" names. > > Seems the plot thickens because there is also a relationship with Selig. > > Google told me > "from the Yiddish vocabulary word selig happy, fortunate (modern German > selig), used as a vernacular translation of the Hebrew name Asher > " I?d thought Zelig = spirit-like, and that Usher Zelig ? Usher Anshel where Anshel comes from the Latin for angel. ?Chesky Salomon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 17:47:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:47:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Since the topic of Agunah indicated that she still would have to sit shiva for him even if he were a menuval. So I have the following question: If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is the halacha? My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? rw From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Aug 31 19:08:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:08:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 31/08/16 01:42, Aryeh Frimer via Avodah wrote: > An individual guilty of such a crime is certainly way beyond the > pale, and certainly falls into the category of those who "deviate > from the practices of the community." To our mind, the author's > suggestion, that the actions included in this category must be "done > deliberately to outrage the community" (/The Mind/, p. 87), is > creative - but without basis and support. Lich'orah "poresh midarchei tzibur" by definition can only apply to devarim shebefarhesia, not to matters that one would expect the tzibur not to know about. > (2) The author cites R. Shabbetai haKohen (/YD/, 240:18, no. 20) who > maintains that while one is not obligated to honor an evil parent, > one may not cause them anguish. This is indeed an important argument > when discussing the parameters of counseling an abused individual > while the parent is still alive. These parameters are indeed > discussed by the author and other scholars at length.[4] > However, once the unrepentant sexually abusive parent has passed > away, I find it hard to accept the suggestion that this could be an > argument against abstaining from mourning him/her. What is the difference between before and after death? I would expect to hear such an argument from one who doesn't believe in hash'aras hanefesh, or from one who believes that death immediately removes one from all contact with this world, so that the dead don't care about what happens here. But AFAIK it's standard Jewish belief that the dead, especially the recently dead, care very much about what's happening to their bodies, and about their postmortem reputations. Thus the prohibitions on nivul hameis, on moving bodies, and on defaming the dead. OTOH this could lead to another consideration: If the child wishes to subject the parent to the anguish of being unmourned, not out of anger but out of love, so that the parent should have a kaparah, that would be a reason to permit it. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 05:24:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 12:24:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent Message-ID: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From R' Simcha Herzog - " and although Maharal contends that Maimonides (he contends the same vis a vis the Tur) would never have published his Mishneh Torah had he been aware that his work would eventually be used by scholars to decide halachic questions without being required to have recourse to the Talmud - that seems to be somewhat wishful thinking as Maimonides famously and controversially seemingly wanted his magnum opus to replace other sources of the Oral Law http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49246&st=&pgnum=12 " Me- I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts on this? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 1 10:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <71b30b941b1f436ebb8d4fbfd7701d1e@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160901174712.GB2314@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 12:24:03PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : I suppose it depends whether one thinks the Rambam's addressing "adam" : means adam in the street or everyone. I suspect he meant it for those not : capable of study at his level, but who knows - after all didn't R' Yosef : Karo write the S"A as a cheat sheet for those who couldn't handle the : beit yosef due to time or resource constraint's? Any research/thoughts : on this? RMR and I argued this Maharal at length (for months, under a number of different subject lines) on-list. LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are capable of it. Similarly, the Mechaber wrote the SA for the masses, but expected a poseiq to use the BY. What we argued about was whether the Maharal's negative statements about codes went as far as banning them for the masses as well. And thus, how do we distinguish between higi'ah lehora'ah and not, and how much is someone who is not higi'ah lehora'ah expected to 2nd-guess his poseiq and follow his own seikhel. See "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is but" through "Maharal; Brain is the Soul, Service to HKBH is" (5 index entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MAHARAL%20BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20SOUL%20SERVICE%20TO%20HKBH%20IS%20BUT "BeisDin Errs Who Brings the Chattos?" http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BEISDIN%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20CHATTOS When BD Errs, Who Brings the Sin Offering (4 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WHEN%20BD%20ERRS%20WHO%20BRINGS%20THE%20SIN%20OFFERING Brain is the Link to HKBH http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=B#BRAIN%20IS%20THE%20LINK%20TO%20HKBH Lama Li KeRa? Sevara Hu (2 entries) http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LAMA%20LI%20KERA%20SEVARA%20HU ve'od. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Rescue me from the desire to win every micha at aishdas.org argument and to always be right. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Nassan of Breslav Fax: (270) 514-1507 Likutei Tefilos 94:964 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 08:57:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 08:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning Message-ID: 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't rotate then , or was it an optical effect? 2. if the former, then is this science true? https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-again-What-do-you-do -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:58:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902195838.GB28849@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : If an adult child murders his parents, is he mechuyav to sit shiva for : them? I know that sounds ridiculous but since it can happen, what is : the halacha? Why does it sound ridiculous? He has *more* need to be taught to regret their loss. And in any case, as we have seen, there is a kibud av va'eim element to mourning one's parent, and thereby an element of bein adam laMaqom (BALM). However, for the first reason, I would think that someone would be obligated to sit shiv'ah for a sibling, spouse or child that they murdered even without the BALM angle. : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? In a move that I am sure will surprise noone, let me quote from the instroduction to Shaarei Yosher. I believe he is saying that it is only someone who knows enough in comparison to the teacher that they can sift out the chaffe and take the flour, as the gemara describes R' Meir's relationship with Acher. But I agree with the point I think you're implying -- Torah isn't math. If the person is not showing the Torah's influence, the information you get from him must perforce be tainted. But to my mind it is worth knowing and contemplating what our Sages said on Chagiga folio 15b. How could Rabbi Meir receive Torah from the mouth of Acheir [the former Rabbi Elisha ben Avuya, after he became a heretic]? Doesn't Rabba bar bar Chana quote R' Yochanan [in Chagiga as saying] "What does it mean when it says For the kohein's lips should keep knowledge; they should see Torah from his lips, for he is the angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts" (Malachi 2:7)? If the rav is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts, seek Torah from his mouth. And if not, do not seek Torah from his mouth." And the Talmud concludes, "There is no question -- this [Rabbi Meir studying under Acheir] is with someone great, this [the verse] is of someone of smaller stature." It is worth understanding according to this how Rabbi Yochanan spoke without elaboration, since he speaks only of the smaller statured, not the greats. One may say that we should be exacting in that Rabbi Yochanan said, "seek Torah from his mouth" and not "learn from him". For in truth, one who learns from his peer does not learn from the mouth of the person who is teaching him, but listens and weighs on the scales of his mind, and then he understands the concept. This is not learning "from the mouth of" his teacher, but from the mind of the teacher. "Torah from the mouth" is only considered accepting the concepts as he heard them, with no criticism. And it was by this idea that Rabbi Yochanan spoke about accepting Torah from the mouth [i.e. uncritically] only if the rabbi is similar to an angel of Hashem, L-rd of Hosts. And according to this, in Rabbi Yochanan's words is hinted a distinction between who is of smaller stature and who is great. The one of smaller stature will learn Torah from the mouth, for he is unable to decide what to draw near and want to keep away. Whereas a person of great stature who has the ability to decide [critically] does not learn Torah from [someone else's] mouth. Similarly, it's appropriate to alert anyone who contemplates the books of acharonim that they should not "learn Torah from their mouths", they shouldn't make a fundamental out of everything said in their words before they explore well those words. Something similar to a reminder of this idea can be learned from what the gemara says in Bava Metzia, chapter "One Who Hires Workers". Rabbi Chiya said, "I made it so that the Torah would not be forgotten from Israel." It explains there that he would plant linen, spread out nets [made of tat linen, thereby] hunt deer, made parchment [of their hides], and wrote [on them] chumash texts. This hints that whatever is in our power to prepare from the beginning of the Torah, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves, according to the ability that was inherited to us to explore and understand. And not to rely on the words of the gedolim who preceded us. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, micha at aishdas.org Our greatest fear is that we're powerful http://www.aishdas.org beyond measure Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 11:57:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 14:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 02/09/16 11:57, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't > rotate then , or was it an optical effect? > > 2. if the former, then is this science true? > https://www.quora.com/Youre-flying-a-small-plane-when-the-Earth-stops-spinning-for-10-seconds-then-starts-spinning-a > gain-What-do-you-do I think it has to mean that the earth stopped rotating, or that the sun (and probably the rest of the universe) started rotating to remain over the same longitude of the earth, which are two ways of stating exactly the same thing. And that all inertial effects were automatically damped out by the same miracle that made it happen in the first place. So yes, That is the problem with stupid questions like that one on Quora. If the premise of a question requires a suspension of natural law, then the answer can't assume natural law remains in effect. As Manoach's wife told him, if Hashem meant us to die He wouldn't have sent us the angel in the first place; therefore even if the sight of angels is deadly, we're protected. If fresh water is coming out of a rock, it's silly to analyze its chemical makeup and worry about the water being toxic; it's water, not liquid rock. If the sea splits it's silly to analyze the weight of the water behind the "walls" and figure out their tensile strength or structural integrity; whatever changes in nature are necessary to make the miracle work are included in the miracle. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 12:38:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 15:38:36 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] earth stops spinning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160902193836.GA28849@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 02, 2016 at 08:57:12AM -0700, saul newman via Avodah wrote: : 1. hashemesh begivon dom. do we assume that means the earth didn't : rotate then , or was it an optical effect? The Radaq ad loc (Yeshohua 10:14) noted that in Yeshayah 38:8, the sun goes backwards for Chizqiyahu, not "merely" stopped. See AZ 25a, which seems to rule out optical effects. Machloqes version 1: R Yehoshua ben Levi says there was 24 hours of daylight. "Velo atz lavo kayom tamim". The sun moved for 6 hours, stopped for 6, moved for another 6 hours, stopped for 6, and so on. R' Elazar: 36 hours. Moved for 6 then stopped for 12, moved for 6 and stopped for 12 -- so that the total time it stopped was "kayom tamim". R' Shmuel bar Nachmeini: 48 hours. Moved for 6. stopped for 12, moved for 5 stopped for 12 for. "Velo atz lavo", the second time was a yom tamim, unlike the first time. Machloqes, Tosefta's version: RYbL: 24 *additional* hours of sunlight, 36 altogether. Moving for 6, stop for 12, moving for 6, stopped for 12 RE: 36 *additional* hours, 48 altogether. Moved for 6, stopped for 12, moved for 6, stopped for 25. RSbN: 48 *additional* hours, 60 altogether. Move 6, stop 24, move 6 stop for 24. The Ralbag says it was a psychological effect. Hashem allowed such a rapid victory that it felt liike the earth stopped. But then, the Ralbag's notion of miracle is that it never defies nature. Within his Aristotelian Physics, an intellect imparting impetus to an object to make it move is within Physics. A miracle is when G-d's Intellect does so at just the right time. There is no corresponding concept in Physical theories since Newton. The Maharal objects to the Ralbag (2nd intro Gevuros Hashem) and says the sun did indeed stop, but only for those people in Giv'on -- shemesh beGiv'on dom. And then he goes on to explain how nissim cause an inconsistent reality. Each person experiencing the version appropriate for them. (Leshitaso, water didn't turn into blood when taken by a Mitzri during makas dam; it was simultaneously water for Jews and blood for Mitzriim.) : 2. if the former, then is this science true? What science? If the world suddenly stopped spinning, HQBH employed a whole lot of action with no re-action. Once you have a miracle the size of the angular momentum of the entire planet -- plus whatever electromagnetic seconry effects among the molten iron in the corse and the earth's magnetic field, addin to it Hashem tampering with everything in the air as wll is only a minor addition. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The trick is learning to be passionate in one's micha at aishdas.org ideals, but compassionate to one's peers. http://www.aishdas.org Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 2 14:46:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 17:46:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] aveilut for an abuser Message-ID: from R' Moshe Yehuda Gluck: > Another weird case I've wondered about for years: A man receives a > heter mei'ah rabbanim, marries again, and then his first (and > still) wife dies. He sits shivah for the first, presumably, even > though they may have been estranged for years. (A similar situation, > though less weird to me, would be in regards to an agunah, where a > spouse would presumably sit shivah for the spouse even though they > haven't been in contact for years.) R' Mordechai Cohen suggested: > In the agunah case - if he was mechuayav to divorce her and > refused to do so he (perhaps) w be considered a rasha and no shiva > would be required. There might be no need to go so far as to declare him a rasha. Perhaps an honest appraisal of their relationship is all that is needed. Rabbi Chaim Binyamin Goldberg writes in "Mourning in Halacha" (ArtScroll) 15:4 - "If one was in disharmony with his wife and intended to divorce her, but before he did so she died, some rule that he is not obligated to mourn for her. But others disagree. [Chiddushei R' Akiva Eiger (loc. cit.); Yeshuos Yaakov, Even HaEzer 4:subfootnote 8]" (I presume that R' Akiva Eiger is the meikil here, and the Yeshuos Yaakov is the machmir. Unfortunately, it's not clear to me where the "loc.cit." is referring to.) It seems to me that RMYG's case of Heter Meah Rabanim is a kal vachomer for the R' Akiva Eiger, inasmuch as he not only *intended* to divorce her, but went the extra step of writing a get pending her acceptance of it. It would be fascinating to see this RAE inside, to see his logic and what other cases it might apply to. Several posters in this thread have commented that Kibud Av v'Em might apply even to abusive situations, but I have trouble understanding why that would apply to spouses. I am not the first person who ever gave a "Mazel Tov!" to someone who escaped from a bad relationship, and I wonder why the Yeshuos Yaakov would obligate someone to mourn the death. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 05:36:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:36:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent Message-ID: Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa - we are not permitted [according to R Yona under pain of death] to in any way show endorsement or even acceptance of a Rasha. If this person has shown no remorse, he remains a Rasha. I suppose the Q then becomes HOW much remorse must he show? Because possibly a minimal amount of remorse means he is no longer a Rasha, even if he has not the fortitude to ask Mechila from his victims. The Gemara BM discussing children returning identifiable objects, a pink caddillac which is the Ribis collected by their deceased father says this only takes place when the father has repented but died before being able to complete returning the identifiable object. Otherwise he is a Rasha. They are not permitted to honour a Rasha. Which suggests that if he had the opportunity to return it but did not - he still remains a Rasha notwithstanding any remorse he may have expressed. The only argument to honour a Mechallel Shabbos BeFarHesya with an Aliyah is that these-days, Chillul Shabbos is no longer seen as a trampling upon and a dismissive rejection of, Yiddishkeit. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 3 19:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 22:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Learning Torah from Evil People (was: Mourning an Abusive Parent) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160904021323.GA21746@aishdas.org> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 08:47:43PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote: : My second question is: Can you learn Torah from a known pedophile? The opinion I gave from R' Shimon Shkop's intro is not covered in this broader survey. But over Shabbos I read this 2-part article by R Dovid Lishtenstein that really covers the question with a wide variety of rulings. https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-1 https://www.ou.org/torah/halacha/headlines/disgraced-rabbi-part-2 Mostly on this topic, but opens with a short discussion on how to handle rumor and closes with a discussion of published works by a disreputable but learned author. Gut Voch! -Micha -- Micha Berger "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole micha at aishdas.org heart, your entire soul, and all you own." http://www.aishdas.org Love is not two who look at each other, Fax: (270) 514-1507 It is two who look in the same direction. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 08:48:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 11:48:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rambam intent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <582b59bf-bba0-bbd5-4d44-e99fd6a30989@gmail.com> > From: Micha Berger Thu, 1 Sep 2016 13:47:12 -0400 > > > ...LAD, the Rambam wrote Mishnah Torah as shelish bemishnah, still requiring > shelish begemara (lehavin davar mitokh davar, etc...) for those who are > capable of it. In support of this, when Rav Pinchas HaDayyan chided the Rambam for what he wrote in the introduction to his Mishneh Torah, the Rambam responded (Letter to Pinchas HaDayyan) as follows: ...you write, ''It would be proper for your eminence to edify the world with the instructions not to neglect toiling in the Gemora...'' It is proper for me to edify you regarding this entire matter, and let you know that I understood quite well what you have in mind, even though you have only hinted to it and not expressed it explicitly. Know, first of all, that never did I, /chas v?shalom/, say ''do not occupy yourself''?either regarding the Gemora, the halachos of the Rif or anything else. Anyone aware of the facts can testify that for roughly the past one and a half years, only three or four of my [regular] group [of students] have studied some of my work under me. The majority of students desired to study the Halachos of the Rif, and I taught them all those halachos many times. And two of my students asked to learn Gemora, and I taught them the /mesechtos/they requested. Did I command them, or did it enter my mind, that I would burn all the works composed by those before me because of my work? *Have I not explicitly said at the beginning of my work that I only composed it because there are those who, due to the lack of ability, are unable to plumb the depths of the Talmud, and who cannot decipher from it that which is prohibited and permitted? And I elaborated upon this greatly.* I admit that I find it hard to produce said elaboration, but this is what the Rambam says he meant. Zvi Lampel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 4 15:20:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2016 22:20:35 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Double-Header Haftarah Message-ID: <1473027636231.60409@stevens.edu> From http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/7001 Directly due to the interesting circumstances of this week, Parshas Re'eh / Shabbos Rosh Chodesh Elul, an unusual occurrence will transpire in a fortnight on Parshas Ki Seitzei: a double haftarah. Not a printing mistake, this double haftarah will actually be recited by the vast majority of Ashkenazic congregations worldwide. Many do [not] realize this special occurrence even exists. In fact, one recent time this occurred, when I mentioned the uniqueness of this situation to the gabbai on that Shabbos itself, he responded that he had never heard of a double haftarah! He maintained that at the hashkama minyan, filled with Bnei Torah, not a single one pointed out such a thing! [No, I did not daven Haneitz that Shabbos.] I had to show this ruling to him explicitly in both the Mishnah Berurah and the Tukachinsky Luach Eretz Yisrael, before he consented to allow the Baal Koreh to read both haftaros. However, his skeptical response was quite understandable, as the previous occurrence of a double haftarah to that Shabbos was fourteen years prior! See the above URL for more. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 02:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 12:12:46 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] aeroponics Message-ID: vegetables that grow in air more questions for shemitta and other halachic questions (though this one is in Newark NJ) , though should eliminate bugs better than hydroponics see http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/world/aerofarms-indoor-farming/index.html -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:42:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 13:42:23 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish weddings. In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, and not acceptable." "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 06:47:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (MDeutsch via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 09:47:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> From: Professor L. Levine [mailto:llevine at stevens.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 9:42 AM > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that chupah = yichud From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 14:59:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 17:59:37 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom In-Reply-To: <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> References: <1473169333186.86422@stevens.edu> <009701d20845$2bff8f60$83feae20$@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 06/09/16 09:47, MDeutsch via Avodah wrote: >> From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c >>> Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva... >>> In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on Jews of Sephardi >>> heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there as an inherent problem with the >>> notion of "yichud room," in that it leads to immodesty... >>> Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to cancel this >>> custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. Even among Ashkenazim." > Only problem is that one of the shitos in the gemara in kesubos is that > chupah = yichud And AFAIK Sefardim do this *after* the wedding, when the couple go to their actual home. At the wedding the bride is still an arusah, not a nesuah, whereas Ashkenazi brides are nesuos (which leads to a machlokes whether they must cover their hair at the wedding, or only the next morning). -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:47:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:47:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907014707.GA21059@aishdas.org> On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 09:39:47PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : He stresses in the book that the purpose of physics is to determine the : results in the real world, i.e. the how and not the why. Thus, while : quantum theory is weird and not understood by anyone QED is much more : strange..... He stresses : that we don't know iof all this really happens but the theory matched many : experimenst to multiple digits of accuracy and so it is "correct". This is only since QM. Before that, scientists expected to have a "why" to justify their equations. (String theorists often find that two theproes about the geometry of space and of the M-brance that occupy it produce the same math. And they are now considered identcial theories, even when they disagree on minor things like how many dimaensions space has.) BTW, this move keeps religion and science even further apart as seperate magesteria, dealing with very different topics. : 1) It is impossible to even theoretically create an experiment that would : prove or disprove the assertion : 2) It does nothing to help determine the outcome of any experiment and so : is irrelevant for physics. : One can argue for G-d and one can argue for an alien race that determines : everything in the world using their super-super computer. But... 1- There could well be other ways to justify the conclusion [that ev "there is nothing as a law of nature but rather G-d continually guides every single incident to the identical result." 2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us. And if all science does is give the math by which we describe predictable patterns of events, then "G-d did it" is on the same level playing ground as any other explanation. (See my comment above about non-overlapping magesteria. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are what we repeatedly do. micha at aishdas.org Thus excellence is not an event, http://www.aishdas.org but a habit. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Aristotle From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 18:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 21:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2016 at 10:36:39PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the : Issur of Chanufa... An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. As I see it from the discussion so far: 1- To what extent is kibud av va'eim a mitzvah bein adam laMaqom, and thus not only about the parent. The parent as a symbol of the Third Parner in the person's creation and how He would be treated. As in R' Aryeh Frimer's book review -- it's not clear a rasha serves in that role. But I am also not sure we hold he doesn't. 2- What can we demand out of the victim? It's not like kibud av is yeihareig ve'al ya'avor. Mental health matters. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger None of us will leave this place alive. micha at aishdas.org All that is left to us is http://www.aishdas.org to be as human as possible while we are here. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 6 20:29:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 13:29:31 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I suggested that Mourning an abusive parent ought to be prohibited since it violates the Issur of Chanufa... R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not so sure. Reb Micha please explain why there might not be an Issur Chanufa when honouring an abusive parent? [Email #2.] Subject: Chanufa re Abusive Parents, R Yona ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong ..... 188 One is obligated to expose oneself to risk [LeSakana] rather than transgressing such a sin .... 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy for if this Chonef would not have abandoned Torah he would not be able to praise one who transgresses it ... and even though the praise is all utterly true .... I suppose we must say that those things that we may assume a normal person would regret - even if they lack the fortitude to do the right thing and make restitution or apologise to the victim So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? Best, Meir G. Rabi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 03:51:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 06:51:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 07, 2016 at 01:29:31PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : R Micha responded - An abusive person, definitely. An abusive parent? Not : so sure. ... : So why would it not be Chanufa to honour a parent, which is essentially : making a declaration that the parent is a good person, even though the : honouring does not reflect directly upon the abusive nature of that parent? I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if He visibly walked among us. After all, there are 3 shutfim in a person's birth, and that's why kibud av is among the first 5 diberos, etc... (I am sure you have heard this before; it is common derashah fodder.) And thus the first question I posed is whether a parent who is a rasha still serves as that symbol, or whether kibud av is not obligatory. One can't really talk about chanifah if the point is that one's treatment of the parent is mandated as symbolic or training for how one would treat one's Parent in heaven. And so to my mind, the question is more about can a rasha serve in that role of symbol, and thus beyond the topic of chanifah. (In addition to the question of whether mental health should trump the chiyuv anyway.) Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself, micha at aishdas.org "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now, http://www.aishdas.org at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?" Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 11:53:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 21:53:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] laws of nature Message-ID: <> Most definitely!! Several books on physics offer that as an alternative bur prefer multiple universes etc. I would imagine that people on this list would think that the existence of G-d is more logical than the existence of infinite universes or 13-dimensional universes none of which can be proved either. <<2- Being irrelevant for physics doesn't mean it's irrelevant for physicists -- or the rest of us.>> As I pointed out Feynman had severe moral failings that disturbed his biographer. So being a great physicist doesn't solve everything of value -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 14:33:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 07:33:09 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 7 Sep 2016 8:51 PM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > I argued that while it could well be chanifah, that might not matter. > > Kibud av va'eim is only partly about the parent. To a large extent the > parent is a "cheftza shel mitzvah", representing how we would treat G-d if > He visibly walked among us... Is there any Halacha founded upon the Derasha - HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person? I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of Chanufa. AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 15:19:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2016 18:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of : Chanufa. : AFAIK it's a Derasha not brought in Midrash, nor mentioned by the Rishonim. See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos 40a. Tosafos applies asei dokheh lo sa'asei to kibud av va'eim (KAvE). Birkhas Shemu'el notes that we don't hold asei bein adam lachaveiro (BALC) dokheh lo sa'asei BALM, and concludes that it must be that Tosafos hold that KAvE is BALM. See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. As I said, it's an open question. Even lehalahakhah. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Never must we think that the Jewish element micha at aishdas.org in us could exist without the human element http://www.aishdas.org or vice versa. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 7 17:56:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 10:56:58 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] [Chanufa] Mourning an Abusive Parent In-Reply-To: <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> References: <20160907015532.GB21059@aishdas.org> <20160907105155.GC18299@aishdas.org> <20160907221906.GB1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 8 Sep 2016 8:19 AM, "Micha Berger" wrote: > On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 07:33:09AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > : I'm pretty suspicious of employing a Derasha (HKBH is a parent, 3 Shutfim > : in a person) LeTaAma Dekra, to modify the application of the Issur of > : Chanufa. ... > See the Birkhas Shemu'el (Yevamos 3:3) explaining Tosafos on Kesuvos... > See also the Minchas Chinukh (#33), who concludes Yom Kippur is mechaper > KAvE without asking their mechilah because KAvE is BALM. > On the other hand, the Rambam on Peiah 1:1 clearly labels KAvE as BALC. It would seem that notwithstanding the BALM aspect within the Mitzvah of KAVeEim, it is not greater than the Mitzvah of honouring and respecting BD. Yet the Issur of Chanufa applies specifically to not bowing to accept a Pesak of a preceding BD just because they preceded the present BD that deems their ruling to be incorrect. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:04:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:04:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before l'dor v?dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 05:45:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 12:45:48 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? Message-ID: <1473338724997.73768@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Am I permitted to bake my Shabbos challah in the oven at the same time that I am baking meat? What about right afterwards? A. In a previous Halacha Yomis we discussed the Rabbinic prohibition to consume fleishig bread. If bread is baked in an oven with meat that contains liquid, the zaiya (steam) of the gravy will be absorbed into the bread. The bread will be considered fleishig and unless it is a small amount or baked in a strange shape, the bread may not be consumed. Based on the above, the Rama (Yoreh De'ah 97:1) rules that it is permissible to consume fleishig Shabbos challos, since they have a distinct shape and they are intended to be eaten on Shabbos. If the meat was cooked without liquid, the bread is technically not fleishig and may be eaten. Nonetheless, because the raicha (aroma) of the meat is absorbed by the bread, in the first instance (lichatchila) the bread should not be eaten with dairy. In this instance, the Levush (Yoreh De'ah 97:3) writes that while the bread may be consumed, nonetheless it is preferable not to bake bread in an oven at the same time as meat, unless the pan is covered. One may bake bread in an oven immediately after meat has been removed because there is no longer an issue of raicha or zaiya of meat. However, if one plans to eat the bread with dairy foods, the oven should be cleaned thoroughly between uses to avoid an issue of raicha. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 06:06:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:06:06 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? KT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 01:48:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 11:48:00 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> References: <7ce20cb5-1d61-f048-e95d-ee9fd00571e1@sero.name> <20160907223936.GE1601@aishdas.org> Message-ID: [Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around 2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha] On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote: > <> > An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548 > The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in > a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on > the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were > imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic > of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot. > from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome > , according to > Vitruvius , > a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet > > or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in). > Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm) > (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the > shiur of RCN has been revised downward. > also from wikipedia > See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings > an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests > that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92 > cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways: > *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm); > *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm); > *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm). > Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the > "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements. At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied: } An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century } Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate } goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g. } (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in } his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.) At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied: > First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The > new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of > 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as > 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm > Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about > 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close > to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which > could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the > figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally > well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much. > In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that > according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses > fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I > once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds > of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into > the walls of the Temple mount. At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied: | In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the | implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and | niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval. | From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har | haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2. Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up. | As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square, } or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had } something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete } ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm? from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/ So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them. } Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary } lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel. This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am not personally aware of such a difference. Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic coins. As an aside a question: The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits or perhaps the egg. Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai? | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek) or Greek set of measurements -) Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 8 10:39:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Fwd: [Beyond BT] Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things Message-ID: <20160908173909.GA8258@aishdas.org> Useful suggestions from R' Mark Frankel (CC-ed). Tir'u baTov! -Micha Beyond BT Posted on September 8, 2016 by [R'] Mark Frankel Elul is the Time to Start on the Little Things """" "" """ """" "" """"" "" """ """""" """""" At the beginning of Shaarei Teshuva (The Gates of Teshuva), Rabbeinu Yonah teaches that if we make our efforts in Teshuva, then Hashem will assist us in return, even to the extent of reaching the highest level of loving Him. But we have to make our efforts. Rabbi Welcher says that Elul is the time to start making efforts on the little things as we work up to dealing with some of our bigger issues. Kavanna is a Big "Little Thing" """"""" "" " """ """"""" """""" Where does kavanna fit in? On the one hand, we all know how difficult it is to daven a full Shomoneh Esrai with good kavanna, but on the other hand saying one brocha or doing one mitzvah with the proper kavanna is something that all of us can achieve. Being focused on Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh this year has shown me the importance of kavanna and awakened me to the fact they we can spend our whole lives involved in Torah, Mitzvos, Tefillah and Chesed, but if we are not focused on Hashem during our day to day lives, then we are not properly building our souls and achieving our purpose in this world and the next. The obvious place to start building is when we're involved in Hashem focused activities like davening and mitzvos. Kavanna during Mitzvos """"""" """""" """"""" There are three basic thoughts to have in mind before performing a mitzvah: 1) Hashem is the one who commanded this mitzvah; 2) I am the subject of that command; and 3) Through the act that I am about to perform, I am fulfilling Hashem's command. It's that simple, the Commander (Hashem), the commanded (me), the fulfillment (the mitvah). So, perhaps we can focus ourselves before we do a mitzvah and have these three things in mind. Kavanna during Prayer """"""" """""" """""" Shacharis davening consists of four basic components, while Mincha and Maariv and brachos contain some subset of those components which are: 1) Thanking Hashem for the physical goodness He gives to us (Berachos / Korbanos) 2) Praising Hashem for His general awesomeness (Pesukei D'Zimra) 3) Intellectually accepting and appreciating the Kingship and Oneness of Hashem (Shema) 4) Standing before Hashem with spiritual awareness that He is the source of everything Obviously there's a lot to talk about here and I highly recommend Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Mediation as a primary source for understanding kavanna and prayer. Kavanna during Shacharis """"""" """""" """"""""" Let's go through a typical Shacharis and pick some potential Kavanna points. 1) When putting on Tallis and Tefillin, have in mind the three points of Kavanna during mitzvos described above 2) When saying morning Brachos, be thankful that Hashem has given you the opportunity to say these Brochos 3) During Korbonos, say at least Parshas HaTamid and Ketores with extra focus concentrating on the simple meaning of the words 4) During Pesukei D'Zimra in Ashrei say this line with focus: Poseach Es YoDecha... - You open your hand and satisfy every living thing's desires". A basic understanding is that although Hashem runs the world through orderly natural laws (as symbolized by the aleph-beis structure of Ashrei), He is constantly active in running the world. 5) During Shema, before the first verse have in mind that you are accepting Hashem's Kingship and oneship with the implication of following a Torah way of life. According to some you should have in mind that you would actually give up your life for Hashem, if necessary. 6) Before Shmoneh Esrai have in mind that you are about to stand before Hashem and pray to him, that He is awesome, and that we are relatively small compared to Him, the source of everything. These are just some ideas. Certainly we can do one a week, or one a day, or possibly more. Whatever works for you, but let's make the effort and earn the merit to grow closer to Hashem at this time. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 02:48:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:48:20 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R Michael Avraham gave 2 different lectures today in Raanana. In one in started a new series entitled expert vs rabbi I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a patient on YK. He can only provide statistics. A transportation engineer cannot say what is a safe driving speed on a given highway. He can only give a graph of expected fatalities vs car speed. Similarly does returning land to the Arabs constitute pikuach nefesh. The military experts can at best give various scenarios and probabilities as a function of many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva as now the person is a different personality. This kind also works in reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind works only in one direction. A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make such a change in a different situation. --------------------------------------------------------- A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi who has a kolel on monetary matters and also heads of bet din for monetary matters. In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that his opinion was a generality and that its application to any specific case would require further investigation. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:30:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an expert in the field? Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? *X means a consequence serious enough to warrant eating Ben On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics > - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 05:42:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:42:01 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I an extremely short review his main point is that in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or many variables. Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi 3) deliver a psak based this analysis (1) can be disputed by anyone who has access to the full information and the appropriate knowledge (2) The rabbis opinion is just an opinion - exceptions to this rule are either a sanhedrin or when has accepted the rabbi for example in a local shul ------------------ Much like the ~Ramban?s famous statement concerning no slam dun proofs s in halachic debate But what algorithm does a poseik use to determine the Boolean result in your case or even in deciding between pure conceptual positions? KVCT Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 03:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 06:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rabbi Mazuz bashes 'yichud room' wedding custom Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: > From http://tinyurl.com/z87vq5c > > Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Head of the Kiseh Rachamim Yeshiva, bashed > the practice of "yichud room" common at traditional Jewish > weddings. > > In addition to the problem of imposing Ashkenazi customs on > Jews of Sephardi heritage, Rabbi Mazuz asserted that there > as an inherent problem with the notion of "yichud room," in > that it leads to immodesty. "What happens today is that the > couple goes into the room, and their friends stand by the > door. They [taunt them, saying,] 'what's taking you so long? > Have you been in there [long enough]?' What is this madness? > Have you gone crazy? This is a disgrace [...] It's forbidden, > and not acceptable." > > "[This implies that] the sages of Morocco don't know how to > learn, the sages of Babylonia don't know how to learn, the > sages of Tunis don't know how to learn, only the Ashkenazim > know how to learn? On the contrary: We know no less; we need > to not have "yichud room." Furthermore: We need to write on > the wedding invitations, 'there will be no "yichud room.' > Whoever is not comfortable with that doesn't have to come." > > Therefore, Rabbi Mazuz concluded: "It is a divine command to > cancel this custom. May it not be remembered or invoked ever. > Even among Ashkenazim." When I read this, I was so surprised and confused that I immediately realized that this is surely a case of bad reporting (that what has been posted must be wildly different from what Rabbi Mazuz actually said), possibly combined with exaggerated rhetoric (that what Rabbi Mazuz actually said must be more extreme than what he actually meant). So I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, this article is on Arutz Sheva, and the main or only source is what appeared on Kikar Shabbat. (A game of "telephone", anyone?) No link to the Kikar Shabbat article is provided, so I don't know how it appeared there, but I'd like to illustrate how this story differs in the Arutz Sheva version vs. the exceprts that RYL posted here. In RYL's excerpt, the first problem cited is that the yichud room "leads to immodesty". But it should be clear to anyone, even from this excerpt, that even Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is NOT about <<< an inherent problem with the notion of the "yichud room," >>> but rather the problem is the actions of the "friends" who are outside. THAT is what is "forbidden, and not acceptable", not the yichud room itself. And if I am correct, then is it really so difficult for him or others to stand by the yichud room door and chase the "friends" away? I know that there are many situations where bochurim will act differently than their teachers want, but this seems to be something that can be policed rather easily. The second problem in RYL's excerpt relates to the sages of Morocco and Babylonia, vs the Ashkenazim. But in Arutz Sheva, this is near the *beginning* of the article, in a paragraph that RYL skipped. And my understanding of that paragraph -- I'm not going to quote it, as I'd prefer you click the link and read it yourself -- is that Rabbi Mazuz's complaint is not at all about the yichud room per se, but about improper mixing of Ashkenazi and Sephardi practices. Some posters here have pointed out that there is a legitimate difference between the groups about the halachic requirements and implementations of "chupah", "nisuin", and "yichud". From the Arutz Sheva article, it seems that Rabbi Mazuz would accept the idea of a yichud room at an Ashkenazi wedding (if not for the actions of the "friends"). What bothers him is that Sephardim are adopting the yichud room -- and to the extent that a *Sefardi* Rosh Yeshiva threatened to boycott a wedding which did not adopt this practice. >From the article in Arutz Sheva, it is clear to me that Rabbi Mazuz's main complaint is the adoption of Ashkenazi practices by Sefardim, and that his secondary complaint is the actions of the "friends" outside the yichud room. I can't help but wonder: If some (or many) Sefardim would *choose* to have a yichud room but without requiring it, AND the "friends" would behave themselves, how would Rabbi Mazuz feel then? (I can't help but compare this to other minhagim which grow in crazy directions over the centuries. Consider the breaking of the glass at the wedding. Some think that this is the act which effectuates the marriage. And even among those who know that to be mistaken, the reaction of the audience is often an increase in joy, rather than the dampening of it.) 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URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:53:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (elazar teitz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:53:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mourning an abusive parent Message-ID: RMeir Rabi, in seeking to justify his position that one need not (indeed, according to RMR, is not permitted to) observe aveilus for an abusive parent, he cited the following: "ShTeShuvah 187 9 categories of Chonef Someone who recognises [Hikir - though his own observations] or has seen or knows [through the observations of others] that a certain person has done bad [Oval BeYad ChaVeiro] or has supported crooked behaviour [HachZik BeTarmis] or he has sinned by speaking badly about another Yid or hurt other peoples feelings [ONoAs Devarim] and smooths things over by telling him, You have done nothing wrong " How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he hasddone nothing wrong? He quotes further, " 189 category 2 - the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." How does practicing aveilus say about the parent that s/he was a good guy? EMT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:39:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> References: <33a111aa-e19b-2887-9cb3-1ed0f20c5fb8@zahav.net.il> Message-ID: <2a40a569-767f-ccaa-9128-c51658f91a00@sero.name> On 09/09/16 08:30, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote: > On 9/9/2016 11:48 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: >> Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert >> 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of the rabbi > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't an > expert in the field? > > Meaning, if the doctor says "there is a high probability (or even a > good probability (does anyone expect a doctor to say 52.3% chance?)) > of the patient suffering consequence X* if he fasts" on what basis is > a rav going to say "that's acceptable"? On the contrary, how can expertise in a field give a person *any* insight into what is acceptable? What is acceptable is a moral decision, not a technical one, and technical expertise is neither necessary nor sufficient. Suppose you live somewhere where etrogim are unavailable, so you consult a shipping consultant to give you an estimate on how much it would cost to import an etrog, get it through customs, etc., but instead of giving you a cost he tells you it will cost "too much". How can he possibly know how much *you* would consider too much? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:43:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 12:43:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > > A more controversial point he made is that the total change of > personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular > person can't make such a change in a different situation. Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, requires help from Above, which is not always given. > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 09:39:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:39:34 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems Message-ID: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Please see the article at http://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/4886 on this topic. Note the postscript to the article which says Postscript: There are a few communities, including many of Germanic origin, and the Chassidic communities of Sanz, Bobov, and Kamarna, however, who do not recite "L'Dovid" during Elul. See Shu"t Divrei Moshe (34), and sefer Minhagei Kamarna, (printed in the back of Shulchan HaTahor; Elul, 381), as well as Likutei Eliezer (pg. 5, footnotes 30 - 31). The Kamarna Rebbe of Yerushalayim, recently told this author that although in his shul "L'Dovid" is recited, as most of his congregation are not his Chassidim and nearly everyone's custom is to recite it, nevertheless, he personally does not. It is also known that the Vilna Gaon did not approve of this addition to davening (Maaseh Rav 53) as it possibly constitutes 'tircha d'tzibura'. The general Sefardi minhag as well is not to recite "L'Dovid" specially during Elul, but many nonetheless recite it all year long as an addition after Shacharis; see Rav Mordechai Eliyahu's Darchei Halacha glosses to the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (128, footnote 4). YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 10:35:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 13:35:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> REL wrote .. major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat Source ? ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 11:57:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 18:57:39 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> References: , <033c01d20ac0$82bda170$8838e450$@com> Message-ID: On Sep 9, 2016, at 2:27 PM, M Cohen wrote: > [RET] wrote: >> major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat > Source ? Perhaps the opinion in the case of the spring where the people upstream can use the water for the laundry even though the people down river need it for their lives? Joel I. Rich F.S.A. Senior Vice President Sibson Consulting jrich at sibson.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 12:27:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 15:27:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Of Elul, L'Dovid, and Golems In-Reply-To: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> References: <1473439144508.57396@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160909192712.GA20010@aishdas.org> Since we're reviving this perenial... The connection between Elul and "Teshuvah Season" dates back at least to Vayiqra Rabba 21 which ties "ori", "yish'i" and "ki yitzpeneini besukko" to RH, YK and Sukkos respectively. R' Chaim haKohein from Aram Tzova (may they see shalom there bimheirah beyameinu), a talmid of R' Chaim Vital, may or may not have saying LeDovid in his siddur, depending on who found the more authentic edition. If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim. A more popular variant was saying it Mon, Thu and Shabbos Minchah when returning the seifer Torah. Others included it in the longer Mon and Thu Tachanun. The custom that actually caught on, of saying LeDavid H' Ori at the end of davening twice a day from RC Elul until HR is Seifer Chemdas Yamim, of probably Sabbatean heritage. Still, given the heritage of the basic idea, does the origin of this particular variant matter so much? BTW, Granikim don't say it for Shir-shel-Yom reasons. An argument the kol hamosif goreia. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger For those with faith there are no questions. micha at aishdas.org For those who lack faith there are no answers. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:24:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > ... in most areas the expert can never give a definitive answer. > He can only supply statistics or in RMA words he provides a graph > of the probability of outcomes as a function of either one or > many variables. > > Thus, for example a doctor cannot say whether fasting will harm a > patient on YK. ... > > Thus there are 3 steps in any psak. > 1) derive the graph and statistics - this is the job of the expert > 2) decide what level of risk is acceptable - this is the job of > the rabbi > 3) deliver a psak based this analysis R' Ben Waxman asked: > How can a rav decide what level of risk is acceptable if he isn't > an expert in the field? It is clear to me that - according to R Avraham and RET - that the rav's job is NOT to evaluate whether or not a given situation is dangerous, not to evaluate the level of that danger. For this, the rav is to rely on the experts. *After* that point, the rav's job is to understand the issur of putting oneself (or someone else) into sakana, and to judge whether or not the halacha forbids or allows (or requires!) the action at hand. I see nothing new here. The halacha accepts the idea that it is dangerous for a choleh to fast, and I will concede that the halacha does give broad categories (such as minor illness, major illness, pregnant, etc) and it gives general rules for how to rule in any given situation (deathly danger on YK, far less on a 9 Av Nidcheh). But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is to ask the doctor. But NOT for his opinion on whether or not to allow/require the choleh to fast; that's the rav's job. The rav asks for the doctor's opinion on what will probably happen if the choleh fasts. To what degree will it harm the choleh. And then the rav decides whether or not it is serious enough to warrant eating. Further, there are many places where the halacha discusses what to do when doctors disagree about a given case. Maybe you follow the majority of doctors, maybe you follow the best doctor, maybe you follow the most cautious doctor. THIS is the rav's job: With a given set of facts, statistics, and opinions, what does Hashem want me to do? Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) > A third shiur was given last night by a local rabbi ... > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks > on shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach > nefesh over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary > loss to the community also over-rides shabbat. He stressed that > his opinion was a generality and that its application to any > specific case would require further investigation. To my knowledge, "a major monetary loss to the community also over-rides shabbat", but ONLY FOR D'RABANANS! I shudder to think that someone in the audience might have heard this comparison between pikuach nefesh and monetary loss, and come to a terribly wrong conclusion!!! Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:28:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:28:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: > Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song > of the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the > end of prayer rather than in the karbanot section? I don't have an answer, but I have a related question which might help shed light on the question: Why is it that some say this at the end of the morning prayers (even when that includes Musaf), while others say it specifically at the end of Shacharis (i.e., before krias haTorah, on days that have a Musaf)? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 9 13:50:52 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 16:50:52 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160909205052.GA19374@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 08, 2016 at 01:06:06PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : Anyone know why if the shir shel yom is to remind us of the song of : the Levites on the daily sacrifice, why do we say it at the end of prayer : rather than in the karbanot section? Look in your Yamim Nora'im machazor. Many have Shir Shel Yom with Shir haYichud, in the beginning. Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik, micha at aishdas.org but to become a tzaddik. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 13:26:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Ben Waxman via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:26:19 +0200 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. Ben From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:33:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:33:29 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> References: <8b3c8962-ca1d-2b1f-4d5b-8153a34ce9ff@sero.name> Message-ID: <> RMA quoted this Tanya and found it very strange that a benoni is someone who never sinned. Surely not the usual definition of benoni In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on > shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh > over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the > community also over-rides shabbat. > <> Tsafot sanhedrin 26a notes that the gemara allows planting and plowing on shemiita because of the taxes (arnona) that needs to be paid. Tosafot gives 2 answers 1) shemiita nowadays is derabban ( ie a rabbinic violation is allowed for major financial loss) 2) Finanv=cial oss can lead to actual loss of life if they don't pay the king his taxes In practice the suggestion was to use nochrim to do the work on the railroad infrastrucrure. Rabbi Rosen went so far as to suggest setting up classes to train goyim to become experts in various fields what he called "gashas - gimel shin shin" for go? shel shabbat (In modern Hebrew a gashash is a tracker frequently Bedouin) Some teshuvot Rav Ishon brought ROY (Yalkut Yosef shabbat 1 remarks 243) - was asked about picking flowers on shabbat for export - the picking season is extremely short and skipping shabbat would cause a major financial loss to the Moshav. He allows it by a Goy (kablan) also based on ysihuv eretz. Rav Yisraeli (Amud HaYemini 17) discusses the Rambam who allows a milchemet reshut to expnad the borders and increase the reputation of the Jewish kingdom. R Yisraeli explains that anything that includes the welfare of the entire community is considered pikuach nefesh. Thus the income of an individual is not pikuach nefesh but if the entire nation will lack income then certainly some of the members will come to pikuach nefesh (In Jerusalem as late as in the early 1900s members of the community died from starvation!! ET). In general things that for an individual are not pikuach nefesh for the community it is - he gives additional examples.. He then discusses a disagreement between the Geonim and Ramban over a burning coal (gachelet) but claims that even the Ranban who is machmir disagrees over that specific case because someone can stand by the burning coal for a short time to prevent problems. However, in general even the Ramban allows violating shabbat for many problems of the community as we see from the laws of milchemet reshut. The most fascinating is a teshuva of CI (Iggerot 1-202) . He actually allows opening shops on Shabbat on the grounds that a great financial loss can lead to pikuach nefesh. He then warns that one must be very careful with this heter as this might cause widespread opening of shops in the galut. Furthermore, if chillul hashem would result this is yehoreg ve-al yaavot. Thus with all his advice for moderation the CI is willing to consider in very limited circumstances opening shops on shabbat even though the danger to pikuach nefesh is lonly in the future (i.e. no "lefananu" On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 7:43 PM, Zev Sero wrote: > On 09/09/16 05:48, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > >> >> A more controversial point he made is that the total change of >> personality in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular >> person can't make such a change in a different situation. >> > > Tanya says the same thing: that to become a benoni, i.e. someone who never > sins, and never even consciously considers sinning, is within the power of > every person, but to become a tzadik, i.e. someone who has no yetzer hara, > requires help from Above, which is not always given. > > > In referring to the recent controversy in Israel on fixing tracks on >> shabbat he claimed that while it is well known that pikuach nefesh >> over-rides shabbat it is also true that a major monetary loss to the >> community also over-rides shabbat. >> > > Surely not. It can override "vedaber davar", and even sometimes amira > lenochri, but actual chilul shabbos?! > > > -- > Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire > zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other > words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even > when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis > -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 12:56:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2016 22:56:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> We actually spent time in the shiur debating that point. I pointed out that Rav Zilberstein in his shiurim on medical halacha brings several achronim that define things like safek muat at 4-5% rov gadol as 2/3 etc. RMA disagreed and claimed just because some famous achron gives a number doesn't mean that one can't have his own definition. He brought a (unverified) story from the Catham. Some asked CS about the order of people to say kaddish (assuming only one at a time). He gave some answer and the questioner remarked that MA disagreed, CS answered, MA made up his answer so I can make up my answer . (Someone told he actually heard a similar conversation with RYBS). RMA answer was that the Rav is certainly as qualified as the doctor to decide what is the cut-off line. Again his claim is that the doctor can only present the statistics. At what point is that enough pikuach nefesh to override YK on its various levels is no longer a medical question. Similarly the engineer can give a graph of fatalities/serious injuries vs car speed. How one translates that into a maximum speed limit on the highway is no longer an engineering question. Someone has to make a decision what level of fatalities is "acceptable" . One possibility is that one accepts absolutely no fatalities which eliminates driving or at best allows a very low speed limit even on a modern superhighway . There is no magic formula for this RMA only point is that the traffic engineer is not more qualified than anyone else to make the decision. I note that the Steipler Rav has a letter that if it were up to him he would not allow anyone to drive except for emergency vehicles and perhaps public transportation. Any private driving at all would inevitably entail some fatalities and there was no halachic justification (in his opinion) for this -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:23:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 01:23:45 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4437b0569a16489da4f8f34fa41fd11c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be kosher. -------------------------- I have heard R'H Scyhachter say that all the rabbis should get together and agree that the rule for stainless steel should change Kt Joel rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 18:34:29 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 11:34:29 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Aveilus, abusive parent who's a Rasha, Chonef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are not permitted to observe Aveilus for an abusive parent because one thereby transgresses the Issur of Chanufa. How does practicing Aveilus suggest the parent was a good person? We are not permitted to show Aveilus for a Rasha. Suicide, if not for being assessed as a temporary state of insanity, must be buried in a separate part of the cemetery and the relatives must not sit Shiva (YD 345) because the suicide is defined as a Rasha. Practising Aveilus for such a person, quite clearly violates Rabbenu Yona, ShTeShuvah 189 category 2 by publicly showing this person was not a Rasha. - "the Chonef who praises the Rasha be it in the presence of the Rasha or not, even though he does not defend the evil .. but simply says he's a good guy." Keep in mind, the parent may not be a Rasha if they've shown even the slightest remorse notwithstanding their refusal to even attempt to mollify their victims. That's a very tough painful evaluation. I also suspect that it may be prohibited to sit Shiva for an abusive parent because it may well pose a V serious risk to the victim. Especially if they are young, I mean less than 30, and perhaps even under 40, because their perspectives about life and those who gave them Halachic guidance when they were impressionable, will most likely change. It is also an ongoing risk to this person's children, no matter what the links, it is statistically significant that those who grew up under domineering aggressive, even passive aggressive, parents are much more likely to inflict some aggression and violence on their own children. Denying the legitimacy of their experience, that their parent was a Rasha, being coerced by community and rabbinic expectations, to pretend that everything was normal in this person's tortured life, is just rubbing salt into open wounds, unfeelingly, deliberately. It invalidates their life and their trauma. In Melbourne Australia we've had an official government public inquiry into abuse in the Jewish Frum schools. It's not pretty. But the worst was not the abuse, it was the attitude that the institution and the big names must not be sullied, all the rest is just damage control. And we wonder why we're still in Gallus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 03:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:26:21 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public Message-ID: I saw one additional discussion of money of the public Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention "u-vechol me-dekakah" -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 07:12:46 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 10:12:46 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] money of the public In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160911141246.GA23972@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 01:26:21PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : I saw one additional discussion of money of the public : Shut ben Porat siman 10 from R Yosef Engel : : He quotes a Tzaddik that the money of the public is considered like : (mamash) like Pikuach Nefesh. : Thus in parshat "Ve-haya im shmoa" the language "u-ve-chol me-odechem" : doesn't apear since it is already included in "u-ve-chol nafshechem" . Only : in the parshah of "Ve-ahavta" that is in the singular does it mention : "u-vechol me-dekakah" I had a different understanding. On the national level, we can talk about the Tokhachos. The fate of the Jewish People is more closely correlated to merit than the fact of any individual. And so, in Shema we speak of "uvekhol me'odekha." How do we utlize what Hashem gave us? But in Vehayah im shoma we speak of "im shamoa ... venasat metar artzekhem..." How do our actions impact Hashem's involvement in the enterprise? And thus "me'odekha" is indeed there, but in a very different role. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger A wise man is careful during the Purim banquet micha at aishdas.org about things most people don't watch even on http://www.aishdas.org Yom Kippur. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 10 20:52:01 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 13:52:01 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: > References: > Message-ID: <829E143F-78BD-4389-965B-1F6348059E2E@gmail.com> From: Ben Waxman via Avodah > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots (or > at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, without > kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the article, he rules > that kashering is still needed. However, if one did make a mistake and > cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, it (the food) would still be > kosher. > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. I believe this boils downs to whether there is the physics of Halacha, which is separate from Physics and Chemistry as we know it. Who;st the wording of e.g. T'aam, can imply pure Science today, when it comes to Bitul, and "special numbers" there is seemingly a separate system, which Rav Hershel would likely refer to as Mesora which should not be moved from, right or left. After hearing many of Mori V'Rabbi Rav Hershel Schachter's Shiurim, whilst one can detect that he is less inclined to be stringent on issues relating to "dangers" such as fish and milk, as we are meant to seek the best medical advice of our time, which I believe I heard him say many times is precisely what Tanoim (and the Rambam etc) did. However, when it comes to Issur V'Hetter, this is not applicable, and we must follow both the logical system and the physics/chemistry of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim in coming to a Psak. At the other end of the spectrum, those who are more aligned with Kabbalah will also apply all Chashahos to what is bad for one's health (I'm not sure they follow the advice that X & Y is good for your health, though) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 05:47:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 15:47:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot Message-ID: << If he did, he attributed it to the 13 sheimos found in the pereq, which correspond to the 13 Middos haRachamim.>> The "joke" says that in the haggadah in echad me yodeah 13 is against 13 midayah. The question is which 13 midot. Chassidim say it is against the 13 Middos haRachamim Briskers say it is against the 13 middot the Torah is learned with -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 14:21:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:21:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> On 8/16/2016 5:21 PM, RMB wrote: > Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam omitting sources and Rambam regarding Prophecy > Do you agree with RMH, though, that they do described what > machloqes and pesaq are in very different ways? He provides > translations and > ... My response: For clarity's sake, Here's his thesis: There are three incompatible views about what G-d revealed regarding the details of the mitzvos, each of which leads to different views as to what Chazal thought they were doing when determining halacha: 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform mitzvos and/or the halachic status of things and people in every conceivable situation, but over time some information was lost. Chazal's job was to retrieve the lost information through argumentation (and also attach unlost oral material to its source in the Written Torah). This he attributes to the Geonim. 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to decide the halachic status of things and people in all situations,or how to perform the mitzvos. Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim determined the halachic status of things and people and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information. He claims this to be Maimonides' view, and that Maimonides was the first to assert this, in a departure from the Geonim. And associated to this is the view that in generating halachos through darshonning pesukim, a Beis Din Gadol has the right to differ any previous one, regardless of stature. 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principles some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one. This he attributes to Ramban, Ran and others. I don't agree, and looking back at a previous thread,(Re: [Avodah] Daf Yomi raises doubts about the mesorah) beginning at V32 #8, I see you are also ambivalent/ conflicted over it. You accept that the Rambam denies that anything G-d revealed at Sinai could have been lost (I don't accept that) but, putting aside what Rambam's position was, you suggest that all three views of what Chazal thought they were doing in determining halacha are compatible with each other. I agree not only to the possibility, but I maintain that the sources confirm it. The primary sources he cites are scant and present only a partial representation of their authors' views. To wit: According to the template, to whom would one attribute the following two statements? ? 1. [The sages of the Talmud] also had other ways in their talmudic ?teachings to show how [there are] chiddushim (new things) and ?anafim (branches)...and they darshonned verses and established ?new halachos and tolados... ? ?2. A Beis Din may actually nullify the words of its fellow Beis Din, ?even if it is not greater in wisdom and number....The Mishnah ?that states that a Beis Din may not nullify...is [only] talking about ?gezeyros and takkanos [but not interpretations of scripture, which ?a lesser Beis Din may overturn].? Of these two quotes, both of which refer to laws newly derived by ?hermeneutical inferences, the first was written by Rav Sherira Gaon (Iggeres) ??and the second by his son, Rav Hai Gaon.? ? The first is no different in meaning ?from the Rambam's reference to "norms that were innovated in each generation -- ?laws that were not received by tradition -- but [were derived] through a midah of ?the thirteen midot." Just as the Rambam taught that when the sages generated ?halachos through darshonning pesukim and at times differed in their ?interpretations, they were dealing only with halachos that are "anafim," ??"branches" of what was received, so too Rav Sherirah Gaon taught that the sages ?produced "chiddushim (new things) and anafim (branches)...and they darshonned ?verses and established new halachos and tolados." By no means was the Rambam ??"the first to claim that alongside the received tradition from Moses, the sages ?introduced new interpretations of the Torah of their own invention."? And just as the Rambam famously stated that a Beis Din Gadol could disagree with the drash of an earlier one, and posken differently, even if it was inferior Beis Din, Rav Hai Gaon stated the same, and was probably the Rambam's source. And according to the template, to whom would one attribute the four following statements? 1)Together with every mitzvah that /HaKadosh Baruch Hu/ gave to Moshe Rabbeynu, He gave its /payrush/...and everything included in the posuk...This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on Sinai" (/Sifra, Vayikra /25:1)," namely, that those matters which may be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe [who received them from God] on Sinai." 2)Every /halacha/ Rebbi wrote [in the Mishnah] without attribution consists of the words of other sages. And those other sages were speaking not their own minds, but [reporting] from the mouths of others, and the others from others, until Moshe Rabbeynu....the law is not the words of the individual mentioned in the Talmud, such as Abbaya or Rava, but is from multitudes, from the mouth of multitudes... [not as is claimed by the] /Minnim/, who accuse us of basing ourselves upon the words of individuals. 3)/Temura/states "1,700/kal vachomers /and /gezeyra shavvos /and /dikdukei soferim /became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his /pilpul/... 4)Because of the long years and exile, the correct /teruah/ sound of the shofar [required by the Torah] became doubtful to us, and we therefore do it several ways. Contrary to what one would suppose from the proposed template, ?all four passages, which refer to every detail being revealed to Moshe, ?the laws stated by the sages of the Talmud originating with Moshe Rabbeynu, ?and to eventually lost details being retrieved or made up for, were written not by ?any of the Geonim, but by the Rambam. It is simply untrue that "according to the ?Maimonidean accumulative view, the role of legal reasoning is ?not to retrieve but to derive." As for the third view attributed to Ramban and the Ran, it is simply false to say that either of them held that since the court ?defines "what is right and what is left" these rishonim held Chazal do "not recognize an a-priori right and left.?" On the contrary, both rishonim refer to an original intent by Hashem as to the halachic status of objects, and of course itis that intent that Chazal strove to uncover. A complete reading of the Ramban (Devarim 17:11) and the Drashos HaRan 11 will show that they held that the obligation to obey Beis Din rests in the supreme confidence that in a given situation and time, the Beis Din is correctly corresponding to the original intent. One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further qualifications. This is especially so when the statement is responding to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed strongly-expressed verbiage. The Karaites accused Chazal of fabricating "mi-libam" halachos and methods of scriptural interpretation. They understood that a legitimate interpretation of pesukim, and that a legitimate maintenance and analysis of the statements of past authorities would not constitute fabrication. The response of the Geonim and Rishonim was that the latter was the case with Chazal, and in that sense, what Chazal said was not fabrication, but indeed the revealing of the original intent of the revelation. The Rambam begins the fifth chapter of Hilchos Teshuva with the broadly-worded principle that Hashem never, ever, ever interferes with a person's free will, yet goes on to qualify this in the seventh chapter. In Moreh Nevuchim (the 7 kinds of contradictions), he explains such methodology as a necessary educational tool. We should not be simplistic in understanding the position of either the Geonim, the Rambam, or Ran or any rishon, based upon an incomplete collection of their broadly-expressed statements. Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 11 18:32:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2016 21:32:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Ben Waxman posted: > http://bit.ly/2bYuDoe > > Rav Melamed has ruled that based on scientific studies, metal pots > (or at least some types) could be used for both milk and meat, > without kashering them. However, for reasons he gives in the > article, he rules that kashering is still needed. However, if one > did make a mistake and cook dairy food in a meat (ben yoma) pot, > it (the food) would still be kosher. > > Rav Lior has ruled this way in the past for stainless steel. My Ivrit isn't good enough to follow that entire article, but I got the feeling that his reasoning is based on experimentation, and he found that if a pot is cleaned properly, the tastes of the first food simply don't exist in the second food. So my first question is: Is that indeed his argument? My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how the pot is cleaned between uses? And most importantly, did those experiments include a control group? In other words, did they run the same experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what sort of "taste" to be looking for? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 04:31:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 07:31:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Artscroll Question Message-ID: R' Joel Rich asked: > Anyone know why in the standard daily Artscroll siddur they > moved the "chazan's stop" right after kriat shma from before > l'dor v'dor to after it by al avoteinu, while leaving it > there in the all Hebrew version (Tifferet Yaakov)? I am looking at my "First edition - First impression - August 1984" of their Hebrew-English version. This is the one that is so old that Duchaning begins with "V'se'erav Alecha", and ArtScroll had not yet changed it to "V'say'arev L'fanecha". In this edition, they have BOTH of the Chazan Stops that you are asking about. So you might be mistaken that they *moved* it. They might simply have *removed* the first one. In any case, I do not know their reasons, and I really wish that they would publish a siddur which would explain these things. (But such a volume would probably invite even more questions and complaints than they get now.) But I will say this: I have noticed many differences between the Hebrew-English and All-Hebrew versions, and I cannot help but suspect that they are tailoring the editions towards what they think the customer wants and expects. At the risk of generalizing, the Hebrew-English version seems tailored for the "balabatish" crowd, and the All-Hebrew seems more "yeshivish". I will give just two examples: 1) On Shabbos morning, after Yekum Purkan, all editions of the Hebrew-English version has a short instruction that reads "In many congregations, a prayer for the welfare of the State is recited by the Rabbi, chazzan, or gabbai at this point." Now, please consider: The siddur does not specify a text for this prayer. It does not say "all" congregations. It does not even specify which "State" it is referring to! Yet even such an instruction is omitted from every All-Hebrew edition. Why? 2) Here's a less political example: In their Hebrew-English siddur, the text for each night's Sefirah counting ends with "La'omer", though recent editions include a note that some say "Ba'omer". The All-Hebrew version is reversed: The main text ends with "Ba'omer", and there is a note that some say "La'omer". Why the reversal? (After writing the above, I saw that the Schottenstein Interlinear version for Shabbos and Yom Tov has Baomer withOUT any note about other minhagim, which fits neither of the two patterns I listed above, leaving me even more puzzled.) Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 05:35:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Ben Sorah Umoreh Message-ID: <1473683740809.3406@stevens.edu> Please see the article Ben Sorar Umoreh by RSRH (Collected Writing VII) for many deep insights into Chinuch by Rav Hirsch. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:33:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:33:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Hadassim, Esrogim, and how much to spend on hiddur mitzvah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912223307.GA23045@aishdas.org> On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 08:34:58PM GMT, R' Yitzchak / Prof L. Levine shared with Areivim: : Click on the link to see an important notice regarding serious issues : with Hadassim : http://www.crcweb.org/Haddasim.pdf Rabbis and Dayanim Fuerst and Reiss meation the lack of point in spending "$70, $100, or $200 on an Esrog, and then risk not filfilling the Mitzvah properly because the hadassim are not kosher or are acceptable only Bdi'eved." But is there a point even if your hadassim are mehudarim? The limit we are supposed to spend on hiddur mitzvah is a shelish. Milevar. So that means spending 150% of the non-mehudar. If you can get in your town kosher esrogim for $40, it is appropriate to spend more than $60 looking for hiddur? Maybe that extra $10, $40 or $140 are supposed to be spent on other people's yom tov expenses instead? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless micha at aishdas.org he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness. http://www.aishdas.org Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive Fax: (270) 514-1507 a spirit of purity. - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:11:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:11:42 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 09:32:38PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : My second question is to understand how that experimentation was performed. : Clearly, Chazal felt that the tastes of the first food *do* appear when the : pot is used later. So what has changed? Is the chemical composition of the : metal a factor? Does the thickness of the walls matter? Is it the : smoothness of the finished product? Does it have something to do with how : the pot is cleaned between uses? This assumes ta'am even means "taste" in the literal sense. Taamei hamitzvos aren't about tastes. Yes, it's clear from rules like kefeila that there is some connection to actual taste. But it could be about the expectation of a taste rather than the taste itself. For that matter, even look at the rule of kefila. A machloqes about whether it means that there is no bitul beshishim when a chef can taste the minority substance (Beis Yoseif, I think based on the Ramban), or whether it means there is bitul of even greater proportions when the chef can't (Ri). (And, the AhS adds, what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so weakened it's not real ta'am.) Rashi only allows bitul beshishim when either confirmed by kefeila or there are no chef's available. And the Rambam allows eating the food if batul beshishim OR kefeilah! Notice how many opinions would ban a food even if an expert epicurian found no taste -- because it wasn't batel. And how the AhS distinguishes between tastes that qualify as ta'am and those that don't. So somehow, even the din of kefeilah doesn't necessitate defining ta'am in chemical presence or even biological terms. I became very suspicious of a chemist's / physicist's definition of nosein ta'am when I realized how absurd of an over-estimate it is to require bitul beshishim of the whole keli. I mean, it's impossible anyone thinks the pot possibly absorbed nearly it's own volume of gravy from that last fleishig dish. Even with 3rd cent iron pots. But then again, I am sure many here have grown tired of my theorizing that since halakhah has to do with impacting souls, it is more related to psychology and existentialism than physics and ontology. I do think the smoothness of the pot is a big factor. Today's polishing leaves a lot fewer cracks for gravy to hide in than anything that could have been madde in Rebbe's or even Rabbeinu Tam's day. The thickness of the walls matter, but since it's proportional, bitul beshishim takes that into account without wondering what ta'am means. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You will never "find" time for anything. micha at aishdas.org If you want time, you must make it. http://www.aishdas.org - Charles Buxton Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Mon Sep 12 15:37:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:37:03 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> References: <20160912221142.GB9834@aishdas.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > And most importantly, did those experiments include a > control group? In other words, did they run the same > experiments with pots of the same type that Chazal used, > and if so, did they find that the taste of the first food > *was* present? Because if not, then how do they know what > sort of "taste" to be looking for? I'd like to expand on that a bit. Besides including metal pots of the same type that Chazal used, the experiments should also include *glass* keilim. As R' Micha Berger wrote, it's not really clear what "taam" means in this context. Glass would enhance the experiment because of its non-absorbency (in certain situations, at least). If "taam" is understood properly, then the experimenters would find it to be present in metal keilim but absent from glass keilim. (In my experience, if one takes a purchases apple juice in a glass bottle, and then uses that bottle for plain water, the water will always have an apple juice taste to it, mo matter how well one tries to clean that bottle.) Akiva Miller From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 02:48:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:48:10 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: The article that discusses the experiment appeared in BDD vol 30 63-84 (Hebrew) Experiments for comparing halakhic principles and empiric reality regarding absorption and emission in utensils by Yair Frank, Lavi Schiller and Rabbi Dr. Dror Fixler earlier a halakhic discussion by them appeared inTechumim 34 113-129 They refer to several articles that discuss experimentation and halacha by R. Nachum Rabinowitz and R. Ariel. More specifically they refer to Pesachim 30b where Amemimar did an experiment to check whether one can use certain vessels for Pesach. With regard to glass Rashba also checked physically (shut Rashba 1:233) The Radvaz was asked about porcelain and performed 2 experiments (shut Radvaz 3:401) etc The teshuva of R. Lior is found at http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 In terms of the experiment they did not test only for "taste" but also for "absorption" . In particular, they weighted the vessel before and after cooking food to see if it gained weight. This is the method used by the Radvaz in his experiment. Today one can measure the diffusion of molecules(or even atoms and ions) into the cooking vessel. Since the general rule is that psak is not based on things that can only be seen by a microscope they also check for specific molecules. Modern taste research is based on 6 types of taste 1) sweet 2) salty 3) sour (chamutz) 4) bitter 5) Ummami 6) fat. In the experiments they tested for types 1-3 as represented by specific molecules and pH levels They tested the following pots 1) copper electrolytic 2) Pleaze 3) Steel 'with carbon 4,5) 2 types of common noncorrosive steel 6) aluminum 7) pyrex 8) glass 9) clay (cheres) the details of the pots are in the article. Most of the article details the various experiments Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal except for the clay pots. using radiation the glass emitted much more than the metal pots. However measuring a basic solution the metals and especially the steel emitted more than the glass. They suggest several future experiments including using pots from the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste has changed from the days of Chazal. The article concludes with an extensive table. One column is the change is weight after cooking. most were way less than 1%. while clay was about 9-10% The more halakhic side was discussed in the Techumim article (deserves a separate post) While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on the original halakha even for modern materials. -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 03:18:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 06:18:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913101854.GA2607@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:48:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : While some poskim are willing to change the halakha based on modern : materials others like R Ariel and R. Asher Weiss disagree and insist on : the original halakha even for modern materials. I am wondering about their "why". For example, nishtaneh hateva (NhT) has been invoked on numerous occsasions to reject applying Chazal's precedent to today's situations. Saying we make our glass / metal differently than they did seems to be of the same kind. If anything, more plausible than some cases of NhT. Unless you're going with R' Avraham ben haRambam's definition of "theory changed", in which case, the grounds for changing the halakhah lemaaseh in light of today's reality is stronger; no need to say Chazal's theory was wrong. Is it some kind of Chazon Ish-like reasoning, that the law, once pasqened by Chazal, is the law regardless of the science? Or are they relying on an idea that RIB and then I raised, that "ta'am" should not be defined scientifically? Or perhaps not in the scientifically intuitive way? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger If a person does not recognize one's own worth, micha at aishdas.org how can he appreciate the worth of another? http://www.aishdas.org - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Fax: (270) 514-1507 author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 04:33:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 14:33:54 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: Having summarized the article in BDD I will now summarize the earlier article in Techumim. Since there is a great overlap between the two hopefully this will be shorter. The first section is a discussion whether "hechsher keilim" is based on physical evidence or is an abstract concept. For example the laws of Tumah are clearly spiritual and not physical. Going to a mikveh does not do anything physical. Their claim is that hechsher keilim is a physical phenomena. Their main proof that for a mixture of meat and milk one relies on the taste of a kefelia (either expert or regular nonJew). Another proof is that one can use a cold milchig dish for cold meat (Rama doesn't allow but only because of possible problems). The third proof is from the experiment of Ameimar (Pesachim 30b) In particular the Or-Zarua states that hagalah and libun are not gezerot but rather they expel the issur. So they conclude that as long as the absorption/expelling is small enough it has no halakhic significance. They then discuss the halacha of "ein mevatlim issur lechatchila" They conclude with various quotes from RSZA (not in print) that agrees that one can rely on the experiments when there are other reasons for a kulah. He further is quoted as saying that a Sanhedrin could change these halachot but changing them now would undermine every woman's kosher kitchen. They then sen letters to several known poskim. R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila because it would create many confusions. R Ariel points out that the Rama does not allow using glass for both milchig and fleishig even though glass does not absorb. This is because glass is made from sand and so is similar to cheres even though it doesn't absorb. Therefore all metals are in one category and we don't examine inter-category. Creating new categories will only confuse everyone (not clear what he says about plastics) . R Asher Weiss just states categorically that we follow our minhagim and chas veshalom to change whole sections of the SA. Finally R. Arusi agrees that the basis on hechsher keilim is physical, absorption and expelling nevertheless the halacha does distinguish between thick and thin pots and so all metal and glass vessels need hechsher and this is "like" (ke-ein) a gezera from the Torah since the Torah prohibited expelling a taste of issur even though we don't have a ke-zayit within 3 eggs. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:53:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:53:40 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913155340.GD27479@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48pm Israel DT, R Eli Turkel wrote: : In the second shiur he claimed that there are 2 types of teshuva process. : One that one repents on individual sins. This requires the technicalities : of teshuva, repentance on the past, vidui and determination not to repeat : the sin. The second kind is where one changes one's personality, example is : Elazar ben dordaya. This kind does not need the technicalities of teshuva : as now the person is a different personality. I once gave a talk (part of which ended up in "Aval Asheimim Anachnu", pg 34 in ) contrasting the Vidui that the Rambam calls the essence of the mitzvah of Teshuvah in Teshuvah 1:1: How does one confess? One says, "Please, Hashem! I erred, I sinned, I acted rebelliously before You, and I did such-and-such. Now I regret and Im embarrassed of my actions, and I will never repeat this thing." and "the Vidui that all of Israel practice is 'Aval anachnu chatanu.'" (2:8) One vidui lists acts, the other vidui emphasizes "anachnu", the "who" behind the sin. See my qunterus for more detail (including the connection to Yehudah's confession to "Tzafnas Paneiach"). : This kind also works in : reverse when a tzaddik changes totally to a rasha while the first kind : works only in one direction. : A more controversial point he made is that the total change of personality : in teshuva is a special chessed of hashem and the regular person can't make : such a change in a different situation. I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 4:24pm EDT, R Akiva Miller replied: : Okay, having explained my views on Halachic Risk-Taking, I'd like to add : that this idea that "the expert can never give a definitive answer. He can : only supply statistics..." applies in other areas too. Specifically, I have : often used this regarding the definition of death. At most, the doctor can : give statistics like, "We have never seen anyone in this condition : improve," and then it is the rav's job to decide whether or not the neshama : has left the guf. (The fact that one rav might disagree with another rav is : irrelevant. The point here is that it is the doctor's job to supply : statistics, and it is the rav's job to make a determination.) Well, in principle yes. In practice there are times the probability is close enough to 0 or 1 so that the doctor or other expert is in all practical sense giving outcome. Second, it's not always about prediction. In the case of death, the doctor may give you probability that the condition will improve -- eg that the heart may be restarted or replaced. But he is also telling you (to reuse your three numbers for a non-predictive scnario): 1) whether the heart is operating, the person is breathing, what parts if any of the brain still show activity, etc.. He is telling you the biological state of the body in the here and now. And 2) the poseiq has to decide which set of biological states have the chalos-sheim "meis", and which are "chai". Misah is a halachic state, perhaps rooted in a hashkafic statement about when the relationship between soul and body is servered in some particular way, and what that "particular way" is. Misah is not a medical statement, but a halachic categorization of how we view various medical states. >From both of which 3) the pesaq halakhah lemaaseh about the person laying before us becomes a natural conclusion. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward micha at aishdas.org by patting yourself on the back. http://www.aishdas.org -Anonymous Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 08:19:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 11:19:51 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: : For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... : 1. Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... : : 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to how to ... : 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... This is way too oversimplified, and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note -- I am not convinced on that point either. The difference between these two models is more whether: 1- G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions than then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. IOW, how do we understand "peirush" -- is it a tool for posqim to use to invent new halakhah, or something inherent in the Torah for posqim to discover? : 1) Together with every mitzvah that HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave to Moshe : Rabbeynu, He gave its payrush... and everything included in the : posuk... This is the meaning of the statement, "The general principles, : the particulars, and the details of the entire Torah were spoken on : Sinai" (Sifra, Vayikra 25:1)," namely, that those matters which may : be extracted through the interpretive rule of "the general reference : written in the Torah followed by a particular reference," or through : any of the other interpretive rules, "were received by us through Moshe : [who received them from God] on Sinai." Rambam here tells you that by "peirush" he means the former -- we received through Moshe the interprative rules for creating the particulars. He could equally as well be saying the latter definition, except that this would require ignoring how the Rambam himself says machloqes works. Skipping ahead to where you address that: : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further : qualifications... Except here there are no further qualifications. You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. At most it would show that the broad statement might be a rule that yet has exceptions. (Eg the cases where the SA doesn't follow his self-declared "beis din".) : to an opposing opinion (such as that of the Karaites) that entailed : strongly-expressed verbiage... My real problem here is that you're calling for an esoteric interpretation, that the rishonim quoted didn't really mean what they said. Even if true, it reduces the whole exercise to a Rorschach Test. If the Rambam doesn't mean what the book says, we should just drop any any attempt to determine what he really did hold. This ways lies non-O academic understandings of the Moreh and other such shtuyot; the methodology is useless. Jumping back for a bit: : 3) Temura states "1,700 kal vachomers and gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei : soferim became forgotten during the days of mourning for Moshe, but : even so, Othniel ben Kenaz retrieved them through his pilpul... The difference being, that in an Accumulative system, Osniel ben Kenaz could hypothetically have been *wrong*; BH he wasn't. There was a particular shitah that was made din, and he managed to retrieve it. Whereas in a Constitutive system, whatever shitah he justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim that is the new din. With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities to second-guess those conclusions. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur micha at aishdas.org with the proper intent than to fast on Yom http://www.aishdas.org Kippur with that intent. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 07:55:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:55:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 13 middot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160913145520.GB27479@aishdas.org> On a totally different note... In R' Amital's Et Ratzon: Sichot leYamim haNora'im (2012), RYA says that vehalakhta dibdrakhav -- the "mah Ani af atah" of "zeh keili ve'anveihu" is not of all of Hashem's middos. For example, not "Keil Qana" (Shemos 2:4). Rather, note that Abba Sha'ul (Shabbos 133b) says on "ve'anveihu -- ani veHu", "mah Hu Rachum veChanun" -- the middoes he names are from the 13 Middos haRachamim in particular. As the gemara (RH 17b) put it, "ya'asu lefanai keseider hazah" -- imitating the 13 middos haRachamim is the key to guaranteed mechilah. I have 2 caveats to this thought: 1- It is a machloqes whether "ya'asu lefanai" really means to do / imitate, or it means reciting the words the way He Did. This maamar was sais in respons to R' Yochanan's "shenis'ateif HQBH kesha"tz veher'ah lo leMosheh *seider* Tefillah." See what I wrote after hearing RZLeff's Shabbos Shuvah derashah last year Still, from RZL's survey of acharonim, it would seem that by far most understand "ya'asu" as a call to emulate (as RYA assumes here), with the Benei Yisaschar saying it's an element of the beris with BY that overrides justice. 2- The Rambam (Dei'os 1:6) paraphrases the gemara in Shabbos, and then adds "ve'al derekh zo, qore'u hanevi'im laKeil 'Erekh Apayim', ve-'Rav Chesed', 'Tzadiq', ve-'Yashar', 'Tamim, 'Gibor', ve-'Chazaq'... Clearly including adjectives that are not among the 13. For that matter, it would appear from context that the Rambam is describing the Middah haBeinonis. The Middah haBeinonis is defined in 1:5, and then 1:6 opens "kakh lomdu befeirush mitzvah zu". IOW, it would seem that the Rambam's Middah Beinonis is a blend of the middos on either side, not a middle point, and because this is what it means to emulate Hashem -- as we see both Middos in Him. And this is quite a different definition of vehalakhta bidrakhav than RYA's identifying it with emulating Rachamim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 12:20:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] shir shel yom Message-ID: In Avodah V34n111, R'Micha wrote: > Anyway, "we" are saying it in relation to Shemoneh Esrei in its role as a stand-in for the Tamid, rather than saying it in proximity to mentioning the Tamid in Seider Qorbanos. < And here I thought that because Shacharis used to end with various learning, including but not limited to "pitum haq'tores" and the list of daily T'hilim chapters (both still said by Ashk'nazim after Musaf of Shabbos), that the latter list was expanded [at some point in the distant past] such that each day the actual chapter was said [and that the former was elided because "people" didn't have the m'nuchas hanefesh to spend a few minutes saying it properly].... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 13 14:03:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 17:03:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] What the Pelishtim had in mind? Message-ID: <20160913210308.GA21228@aishdas.org> According to Shana Zaia in the Ancient Near East Today (Sep 2016, v4n9 ) "godnapping", removing the enemies gods -- idols or other cult images -- from the losing side's Temples and royal house. The Pelishtim may have been trying to steal more than an ark... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Problems are not stop signs, micha at aishdas.org they are guidelines. http://www.aishdas.org - Robert H. Schuller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:44:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 12:44:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <00acd02a2b9a4c97a28d410581a185cb@exchng03.campus.stevens-tech.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices of bread. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 05:38:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:38:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > : One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's > : position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further > : qualifications... > > ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary explanation? And why would that be better? Zvi Lampel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 07:32:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 10:32:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak In-Reply-To: <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> References: <70745302-2b73-ac6e-0f3b-52071b476161@gmail.com> <20160913151951.GC27479@aishdas.org> <7497d71c-d00e-124f-0333-f36fd93f9907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20160914143224.GA4098@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 08:38:35AM -0400, H Lampel wrote: : On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: :>: One must strive to get a complete picture of a Gaon's or rishon's :>: position, and not stop at some broadly-worded statements, ignoring further :>: qualifications... :> ... You are arguing from example, not contrary explanation. : Please explain. I don't know what you mean or what I wrote that : you're referring to. What did I write that is arguing from example? : What is wrong with that? What does it mean to argue from contrary : explanation? And why would that be better? You are arguing that rishon X couldn't mean what he actually said, because there are counter-examples in specific dinim. What is wrong with that is spelled out in the rest of the paragraph. Mashal: There are people who like dwelling on the 2% of the cases where the SA ends up ruling differently than his triumberate. Does that mean that as a rule, he doesn't really use it? Or that there are other rules in play that come to the fore in too few occasions to bother with in an intro? Similarly here. We have a statement of the Rambam, or the Ran, or the Ritva. Even if that statement had exceptions, it would at most mean that said rishon was "only" speaking about ruba deruba of machloqesin, and that the Rambam might believe that there are a few rare exception machloqesin that are Constitutive. but still those are the rare excpetion (As RNS put it: The survival of Mike the Headless chicken for 18 months after his beheading out of millenia of chicken consumption doesn't disprove pesiq reishei! And conversely, emunas chakhamim in their saying pesiq reishei doesn't mean disbelieving what thousands of people saw in the mid-20th cent CE. ) But that wasn't my masqanah. I think you're oversimplifying RMH's model. The differences between Accumulative and Constitutive law is far more subtle than your summary makes it seem. As I said in my post. And therefore, while the summary makes the quotes surprising, given the actual model, they are not. The Rambam holds a pesaq is a human invention. That G-d giving the kelalei hapesaq (in grandfather form -- they too were subjevt to pesaq over the millenia!) does not mean He gave every conclusion, and therefore that both tzadadim could be right. The Rambam couldn't hold that -- it defies Aristo's Logic. Or Boolean Logic. The majority of rishonim give HQBH "ownership" of all the conclusions, even though they contradict. Choosing not to reinterpret the gemaros -- "kulam nitnu miro'eh echad", "49 panim tahor, 49 panim tamei", "eilu va'eilu" etc... to fit the Law of Non-Contradiction. And therefore, leshitasam, a real machloqes is where neither side is wrong. Both are actually teaching Torah, not just "the best we can do, so Hashem told us to follow it lemaaseh." Therefore, according to the Rambam, there could be a solid proof that an earlier beis din erred, and then the law would change. Authority is only an issue with dinim derabbanan (gezeiros and taqanos), and who can repeal a law, not with interpetation of existing law. Whereas according to rov rishonim, it's a matter of which BD could give more authority to one valid shitah or the other. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger We are great, and our foibles are great, micha at aishdas.org and therefore our troubles are great -- http://www.aishdas.org but our consolations will also be great. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rabbi AY Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 11:44:09 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:44:09 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being misled. YL From the OU Halacha Yomis. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. From today's OU Halacha Yomi. Q: I have seen sandwiches and rolls labeled "Mezonos Rolls." Is the bracha on these rolls really mezonos? A. As noted in the previous Halacha Yomis, the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 168:7) rules that the bracha on baked dough made with honey, oil, milk or spices is borei minei mezonos. How much spice or flavor must be added to the dough to render the bracha mezonos and not hamotzi? The Shulchan Aruch rules that a discernable taste is sufficient, and this position is followed by Sephardic Jewry. In contrast, the Rama rules that the flavor must be predominant, and this ruling is followed by Ashkenazic Jewry. The OU poskim, as well as many others, understand the Rama to mean that the bracha is mezonos only if the final product tastes like cake, and not like bread. "Mezonos Rolls" are generally kneaded with fruit juice and water. Typically, they taste almost exactly like regular rolls. Rav Belsky and Rav Schachter both held that they are without question hamotzi for Ashkenazim. Even for Sephardim, the bracha may be hamotzi, since the fruit juice is often not discernable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 08:03:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:03:32 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham Message-ID: <> His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process but it requires the technicalities of teshuva (vidui etc). It works in only one direction, ie one can remove sins but not good deeds The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities of teshuva. In passing he mentioned that halachic seforim tend to stress the first type of teshuva while machshava seforim stress the second type but in reality both exist -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 18:28:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Michael Poppers via Avodah) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 21:28:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time Message-ID: Received this evening from the JEC Adath Israel e-list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM To: Zichron Shlomo Cong A story is told of a king, a very benevolent and kind king. He loved his countrymen, and they loved him too. Fairness and Justice was the law of the land. Every accused had the right to a fair trial, and people were judged with great mercy. In fact, many human rights laws of the modern world were practiced in this kingdom. (There was a law that even after a person was tried for a crime and sentenced, he would be able to have the sentence repealed if he declared in public "Long live the king!" with all his might! [i] Unfortunately, few took advantage of this unique leniency.) It was well known that the king was always willing to help out his subjects in all their needs. In fact, a ministry of his government was dedicated to helping out individual and communal matters throughout the land. When a city or community appealed for his help, he would never refuse them.[ii] The king had a particular affinity for his Jewish subjects. One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] The Jews were ecstatic! What an opportunity! This was going to be one of the most significant events ever. Preparations began in all parts of the city. New flowers were planted, boulevards repaved, and everything was set in place for the upcoming visit. But the Jewish Quarter wouldn't suffice with a mere facelift. After all, the king will be spending considerable time there. Now, you need to understand the issue. You see, everybody loved the king dearly. Nobody would want to disappoint him. But human nature, combined with personal and family needs, sometimes collaborate to help people forget the law. No malice intended. The fact is that people run about their busy lives, and the law often gets neglected. One fellow owed three years of back taxes; another person built an illegal extension, a third one got into trouble with some bad friends. On the communal level too, things weren't perfect. Last winter's potholes were never repaired, the shul and community hall were in disrepair. Each individual had his host of problems he needed to address before being able to face the king. The king will be fully informed. You need to understand the severity of the situation. Imagine this person who owed taxes, standing in audience, requesting help to heal his sick daughter, and the king, after listening intently, asks him, "OK, we can get you the finest doctor, but tell me, how are things by you? Why aren't you up to date with your taxes?" Could you imagine the shame? I mean, it's not only that. He might be imprisoned on the spot! One CANNOT face the king with such baggage. The guy with the renovation, if he doesn't want to be in deep trouble, it would be smart if he applied for a building permit now, ahead of the king's visit. It's obvious; no one can face the king without having done some serious inventory. Everything has got to be squeaky clean. In all truth, there was a great blessing concealed in this visit. Otherwise, things could have continued so for a long time, with offenses, small and big, building up, until the king would have had enough of it and punished the entire community, as he has done in numerous cities under his rule.[v] So this pending visit gave everyone the opportunity to come clean, and to refresh their loyalty and commitment to his Majesty.[vi] There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the king would accept their sincere remorse for their misdeeds and grant them clemency.[vii] At the recent town meeting, a concern was raised. Most of the community members were completely unaccustomed to royalty. They might never have seen a royal motorcade, never heard or seen the marching band of the king's army. How will they be aware of the critical importance of this big day? So it was decided that every morning forthwith, a trumpet would be blast all across town. That would serve as a wake-up call to remind the people to prepare for the big day.[viii] Moshe, a long-time resident, captured the feelings in the air, "We are so happy and honored to privilege such an occasion, which express the deep feelings of love we all have to the king.[ix] But, at the same time, we are very fearful as well."[x] -- [i] ??? ???: ??? ???"? ?? ????? ??i ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????i ?? ??? ???? [ii] ??? ???? ??, ?, ??' ????? ??? ????? ???? ????????i ??i ?????? [iii] ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ?????i ????? ???? ???i (???? ?"? ??, ?) [iv] ??' ?? ??, ?, ???? ?' ?????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ???? ???i ??? ???? ???? ???????? [v] ??"? ?????? ??, ??, ??i ???"? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????. ????i ??? ??? ?"? ??' ???? [vi] ???? ?????? ????? ?????? (???"? ??, ?) [vii] ???? ????? ??: ?? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????, ???? ???? ??? ????? ?????? (??' ?? ?:) [viii] ??? ??"? ???i ????, ??i ?????? ?????? ?"? ????? ?????i ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?????? [ix] ???? ??? ????? ?????, ?? ???? ?????i ?? ????... [x] ???? ?? ?' ????? ????? ?????, ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? (????? ?, ?, ????i ????? ???? ??) -- Zev Wolbe From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 14 22:43:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:43:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 14/09/16 14:44, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered mehadrin > food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard for me to > understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a roll "Mezonos" in > the light of the following. I can only wonder why people are being > misled. YL It's very simple. The hashgacha is entitled to disagree with the OU's view. OU-certified meals have hamotzi bread, and the insert informs the passenger of this fact, and advises that if washing is impractical then they should not eat the bread, or save it for later. And the OU comes in for regular criticism, from those who want mezonos bread and don't want the OU making that decision for them; from those who didn't bother to read the insert and just assumed the bread to be mezonos, and now blame the OU for not having anticipated their unfounded assumption; and from those who say that if the bread can't be readily eaten with the meal then it shouldn't be there at all. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 02:57:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 05:57:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel wrote: > The teshuva of R. Lior is found at > http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=71715 > and http://www.yeshiva.org/ask/?id=56591 Could you please check those links? I got a "This page under construction" error for both of them. > Conclusions: the absorption in all the pots was extremely minimal > except for the clay pots. I imagine that this might explain why clay cannot be kashered but other materials can be kashered. But it does NOT help us understand any distinction between materials that can be kashered with difficulty vs materials that can be kashered more easily (libun vs hagala, or hagala vs mere washing). My understanding is that we have three categories of materials: (1) It absorbs, and will release that taam forever and therefore cannot be kashered - such as clay. (2) It absorbs, but it is possible to totally remove that taam, i.e. to kasher it - such as metal and wood. (3) It never even absorbs, so all you need to do is to make sure it is clean - such a glass (at least theoretically). If the goal of these experiments is to determine if some new materials might be in the third category, I do not see this being accomplished. > They suggest several future experiments including using pots from > the days of chazal and the rishonimIn. In particular R. Eitam > Henkin (Hy"d) - Hamayan 54:2 claimed that without comparing the > results to ancient pots the results are of limited value! The > authors argue that we don't know exactly what pots chazal used. > They also didn't agree with the argument that the sense of taste > has changed from the days of Chazal. Baruch shekivanti to Rav Henkin. But I don't comprehend the authors' response. Our lack of knowing about Chazal's pots should *confound* the experiments, and *prevent* any practical conclusions. > R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 04:55:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:55:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine posted: >From today's OU Halacha Yomis > > Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? The simple answer is: Yes, many people do, especially when Erev Pesach is on Shabbos, and they choose to use Matzah Ashira for their Lechem Mishneh. > A: The Gemara (Brachos 42) states that if one eats an entire meal > of an item that is considered "pas haba'ah b'kisnin" (see earlier > Halacha Yomis for explanation of that term), the bracha on that > food (e.g. crackers) would be Hamotzi and one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. The Magen Avraham (O.C. 168:24) clarifies that one would > say Hamotzi in the following two instances: 1) If one ate only > crackers, and consumed an amount that would suffice as a main meal > (such as dinner) for an average person. 2) Alternatively, if one > ate other foods (for example, herring along with the crackers), > and together these foods are a full meal, one would recite Birkas > Hamazon. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe O.C. 3:32) states that > in the latter case, one must consume the amount of crackers > equivalent to the normal amount of bread eaten at a meal. > According to Rav Belsky, this would be equivalent to two slices > of bread. I recommend seeing that Igros Moshe inside. It's only a half-page long (the last two paragraphs are on related topics). Rav Moshe explains the nowadays, "in this country," people eat much less bread than before, and the shiur is much less than three beitzim. Therefore, he gives this example: If someone is at a wedding and doesn't want to wash and have to wait for the zimun, he should avoid eating any cake, "for if he eats even a little cake, sometimes it will be the shiur of 'how much bread one eats at a seudah'. ... And therefore, in this country, where because we have so much, people eat only a little bread, one should not eat cake unless it is less than the bread one eats at a meal of meat and other things. And when it is difficult for him to measure this, then he should not eat cake." It seems that unlike Rav Belsky, Rav Moshe seems to have specifically avoided giving a specific shiur. And with all due respect to Rav Belsky, I have often seen people at the Shabbos table eat no more bread than a bite or two of their lechem mishneh slice. Rav Moshe referred to this country as bountiful, with so much to eat beside bread that it is no longer the staple of our diet. It seems to me that in the decades since he wrote that, our society has gone even further, and bread is seen as a food to be eaten in limited amounts for health reasons. This could easily impact one's determination of how much is typically eaten at a meal. On the other hand, it also seems to me that Rav Moshe's opinion on this is not generally accepted by most people. I often see people at a kiddush eating all sorts of food indiscriminately, and it is not unusual for them to be sated by this to the point where they choose to delay lunch for a while. And if it was a particularly sumptuous kiddush, they might skip lunch altogether. Sometimes I hear them ask a question of whether it is okay to skip the Seudah Shniyah in such a case, but I never hear them ask if they should have washed and benched at the kiddush. My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), but absolutely no meal foods like cholent, tuna, or potato kugel, because that could make my eating into the sort that Rav Moshe would label as Kevius Seudah. For example, see the very last paragraph of Igros Moshe OC 4:41, where he specifically writes that "one should eat only the baked items, or only meat and fish and other items." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 07:32:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:32:30 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen Message-ID: Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 years ago and handed down through one family from generation to generation, is actually what the present owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two letters in ancient Hebrew. Dr. Stone wrote in his appraisal of the gem, ?There is no modern or ancient technology known to me by which an artisan could produce the inscription, as it is not cut into the surface of the stone.? He dated production of the stone to approximately the 5th century BCE.As an appraiser, Dr. Strange could not erase all doubt, but he could certainly evaluate it as a one-of-a-kind. He appraised the stone?s value at $175-$225 million. In his written report, he said that when he held it to the light, he was amazed to see very clearly inside the stone itself, two letters in ancient Hebrew. The letters seemed to be engraved or burnt into the heart of the stone. http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645/bin-exclusive-lost- stone-high-priests-prophetic-breastplate-thought-found-incredible-journey -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 09:57:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 12:57:20 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15/09/16 07:55, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: > > My personal practice at a kiddush is to first survey the tables for > some noodle kugel or pasta salad that I can use for Kiddush B'makom > Seudah, in which case I'll allow myself free rein of the other foods > (including even some Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, though I ration it to less > than a kezayis per keday achilas pras). If the only mezonos at the > kiddush is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin, then I limit myself to only a few > kezaysim of it, plus some snack foods (chips, nuts, popcorn, candy), > but absolutely no meal foods Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 10:48:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 13:48:28 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: : http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 : Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts : agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 : years ago and handed : down through one family from generation to generation, is actually : what the present : owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem : : Even more astounding than the cut of the stone was the inexplicable : inscription *inside *the stone, visible through the clear surface: two : letters in ancient Hebrew... Okay, so when I first saw this article, I thought: well, that resolves the kesav Ivri / kesav Ashuri question. The two letters are beis-kaf in kesav Ivri (there are no sofios in Ivri). Then I saw https://youtu.be/PPC7Ykrk-7o -- earlier coverage of the same stone. - There is a chance it's a natural flaw that "happens to look like "bakh". - Those are the only two letters. It hit me that if this was from some kohein gadol's avnei shoham, the uniform must have had gezunter luchos on each shoulder to hold the names of 6 shevatim. Shoham is the only stone in bigdei keunah believe to be black. Used for the shoulders of the efod and for Yosef's stone on the choshen. Which then led to the realization that: - The letter pair b-k does not appear in any of the 12 names. Nor in "Avraham Yitzchaq Yaakov" nor "Shivtei Yeshurun". IOW, the engraving can't be from the bigdei KG simply because he doesn't wear those two letters next to eachother. But if it was man-made, I am very curious to know both how and why. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of micha at aishdas.org greater vanity in others; it makes us vain, http://www.aishdas.org in fact, of our modesty. Fax: (270) 514-1507 -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980) From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 12:08:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 05:08:40 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a meal, needs to have their head examined. Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 00:00:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 03:00:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash Message-ID: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> | The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200 | amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number, | meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The | largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, | would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the floor tiles might have been | is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design. >>>>> The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 01:24:16 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 11:24:16 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] hachi garsinan Message-ID: *for Talmud Bavli Variants * *Version 3* We are pleased to announce the launch of the new version of the "Hachi Garsinan" website - the Friedberg Website for Talmud Bavli Variants, part of the Friedberg Portal: http://jewishmanuscripts.org For details, including a list of new Manuscripts see below. With this release, we are starting a new chapter in the FGP/FJMS Projects. Genazim Digital, which was directed by Professor Yaacov Choueka since its inception, was recently merged into Amutat Kitvei Yad, a new non-profit organization. This was done at the time of ProfessorYaacov Choueka's Retirement in June 2016. Amutat Kitvei Yad is under the direction of The Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP) and The Friedberg Jewish Manuscripts Society (FJMS). Our goals are to continue updating the sites implemented by Genazim Digital; including The FGP Cairo Genizah Site, The Talmud Variants Site, and others. We are also in the process of creating new sites to increase the breadth of the FGP/FJMS Projects. We look forward to continuing the groundbreaking work done by Professor Choueka, and to add to this important work. Wishing everyone a Shana Tova - A Happy New Year. Allen Krasna C.E.O. Amutat Kitvei Yad. The Friedberg Project Bavli Variants for Talmud Version: 3 The following manuscripts have been added to the new version: 1. *Rab. 15* *(JTS 15)* - Avodah Zarah 2. *Rab. 1623* *(Enelow 271)* - Pesahim, Yoma 3. *Harley 5508* *(British Library 400)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Beitzah, Ta'anit, Megillah, Mo'ed Qatan, Hagigah 4. *Fr. 51-68* (*N?rnberg [Pappenheim*]) - pages from tractate Mo'ed 5. *Suppl. Heb 1408/82-84 (Paris 1408) *- Tamid 6. *Yevr. I 190/1-21* (*Firkovich 190*) - Bava Batra 7. *Cod. hebr. 95 (Munich 95)* - Rosh ha-Shanah, Yoma, Sukkah, Megillah, Yevamot, Ketubbot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Qamma, Bava Metz'ia, Avodah Zarah, Zevahim, Menahot, Hullin, Bekhorot. The other tractates of this manuscript will be uploaded in the near future. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:06:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:06:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: > The whole yeshiva.org site seems to be nonexistent (thats what this page under construction means) see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans <<> R Lior and R. Rabinovich are willing to accept that modern pots > do not absorb or expel (more than minimally). However, they both > distinguish between lechachila and bi-deved. Basically both > allow use the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechachila > because it would create many confusions. There was a typo here, right? "Allow" should have been "forbid"? They might allow it b'dieved, but the explanation shows that they would *not* allow it l'chatchila. >> Thanks for the correction - yes they both FORBID using the same pots for milchig and fleishig lechatchila because of the many confusions it can cause -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 02:59:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:59:49 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] gem from the choshen In-Reply-To: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> References: <20160915174828.GB5945@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 05:32:30PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/75645 > Sometimes incredible stories are actually true, and in this case, experts > agree that a small onyx claimed to be given to a Knight Templar over 1,000 > years ago and handed > down through one family from generation to generation, is actually > what the present > owner claims: a gem from the breastplate of the High Priest in Jerusalem The article says 'According to the Auret family tradition, the ancestor, named Croiz Arneet deTarn Auret, received the stone from "the High Priest" in gratitude for his part in freeing Jerusalem around 1189.' A total shot in the dark, but wouldn't the only person claiming to be Kohen Gadol in the 12th century be a Shomroni? Which would also fit with the ktav Ivri. On the other hand, a Shomroni wouldn't have cared much about freeing Jerusalem, so I don't know. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 15 21:15:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 14:15:25 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 Sep 2016, at 3:20 AM, via Avodah wrote: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom seudah, and > skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? The Ikkar of a Kiddush is good herring quaffed with yellow or white (you might even use the opinion of the Butchacher to be Meikel on the shiur needed, as a reviis on an empty stomach might get you in trouble when you get home). The wine is usually sweetly shocking. The herring is the Ikkar. The cracker is Tofel for sure. A good firm Eyerkichel might be an issue as their gastronomic prominence exceeds the cracker. They can house four or five pieces of herring. (Chips, Nuts, Popcorn, Candy are pretty close to Zilzul Shabbos :-). One of my grandsons (okay, I'm responsible) sees herring and says "Oh, herring cake" and wolfs down up to 5 pieces without anything else. At least I know Poilishe Mesora is continuing :-) [Moderator note: This post would have been off topic, but it does make clear that sometimes the motivation isn't halachic. Why not make qiddush on a revi'is of wine? While halachically sound, he *wants* the cracker for his herring. -micha] From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:50:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his Torah) : Conclusion: > Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a sandwich type > food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with kvius seuda, hence the wraps > retain the status of bread and their bracha is hamotzi. My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where micha at aishdas.org you are, or what you are doing, that makes you http://www.aishdas.org happy or unhappy. It's what you think about. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Dale Carnegie From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 03:54:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:54:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] 2 Pesakim from R Asher Weiss Message-ID: <20160916105425.GA26454@aishdas.org> 2 other additions to Tvuna in English (most of the teshuvos left in Hebrew) 1- Q:` > ... would like to know the psak for my patients regarding the WHO > advice for a period of abstinence of 6 months between couples if one of > them has returned from a place with active zika virus... A: > The advice of the health organizations should be taken seriously > as there is concern for major birth defects with this virus. One who > returned from a place with Zika could probably be tested for the virus > and if clean would not have to wait the 6 months you mentioned. 2- Q: > Is a Jewish doctor permitted to carry out a sterilisation procedure > (vasectomy or tubal ligation) for a non-Jewish patient? A: > A jewish doctor should not perform this type of procedure on a non Jew. He > may refer a patient at the patient's request, being that the patient > presumably can and will find a way to have this procedure carried out > in any event. Again, Meqoros uBi'urim on-site. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to micha at aishdas.org suffering, but only to one's own suffering. http://www.aishdas.org -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949) Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:39:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:39:57 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: I raised the problem of eating meal-type foods with Pas Habaah B'Kisnin at kiddush, and R' Zev Sero suggested: > Why not drink an extra revi'is of wine for kiddush bimkom > seudah, and skip the pas habo'oh bekisnin altogether? That certainly would work, and in fact that's what I did a few years back, when my weight-loss surgery put me on an all-liquid diet for a while. (Of course, even though Kvius Seudah was no longer a barrier to enjoying the cholent, the liquid diet kept the cholent banned. :-) On the other hand, Mishneh Brurah 273:25 writes, "See the Chidushei Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the [Torah Shleima?] who prove that according to many rishonim, one is NOT yotzay Kiddush B'Makom Seudah with a cup of wine. Therefore, it seems that one should not be lenient in this except B'Makom Had'chak." And in fact, he goes even further in Beur Halacha 273 "Kasvu Hageonim", citing the Gra, who would not make Kiddush - even the daytime Kiddush - except at a "seudah gemura", and not on "minei targima" or wine. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 04:41:25 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 07:41:25 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: > My wife returned on EL from EY last Sunday. She had ordered > mehadrin food. It came with a roll marked "Mezonos." It is hard > for me to understand how the Mehadrin hashgacha could label a > roll "Mezonos" in the light of the following. I can only wonder > why people are being misled. Unfortunately, I cannot find any sources, but the question should not go unanswered, so I will say this, based on what I've heard over the years: There are poskim - and I understand that they tend to be Chassidic - who hold that Kvias Seudah in this case is determined ONLY by the amount of Pas Habbah B'Kisinin that one eats, regardless of what other foods are also eaten. In other words, one would never Hamotzi unless if the amount of mezonos eaten is above the shiur of "three or four k'beitzim". If so, there is no problem with saying mezonos on such a roll, and the appropriate brachos on the other foods in that airline meal, and eating it all in a manner exactly as if the roll had been real bread. There is another question to ask beyond the manner in which the roll is eaten, and that is to identify whether the roll - in and of itself - is Pas Habaah B'Kisnin or Pas Gamur. I think that the above-mentioned poskim tend to look strictly at the ingredients: As long as there is less water than juice, oil, eggs, etc., then they identify it as Pas Habaah B'Kisnin even if it tastes like regular bread. If the poskim of the hechsher on those airline meals hold as I've described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be machmir, they are entitled to do so." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 16 09:00:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Gershon via Avodah) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2016 12:00:07 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps Message-ID: <5F1DB814-9CE5-4764-B425-21EAC8A8BF57@juno.com> Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Recently i saw that Rav Dovid Feinstein said they require hamotzi bekvias Seudah. Sent from my iPhone ____________________________________________________________ Affordable Wireless Plans Set up is easy. Get online in minutes. Starting at only $14.95 per month! www.netzero.net?refcd=nzmem0216 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 03:24:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 20:24:33 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar, yet today even raisin challah is universally accepted as HaMotzi; so too the definition of a Halachic meal that converts Mezonos to HaMotzi, must reflect what is deemed to be normal for our eating habits. Airline meals may be chosen by some even as a Shabbos meal, that's why I proposed the scenario where everyone else at the table is eating a regular Shabbos meal. There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 18:06:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 11:06:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos rolls, airline meals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <396FD848-234B-4D7F-879A-3705AD72405B@gmail.com> From: "Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah" > Anyone who lives in a first world country and thinks that airline food is a > meal, needs to have their head examined. > > Just try serving one of them to your family or yourself at the next Shabbos > meal. Shabbos meal has nothing to do with it. Shabbos actually has a Chiyuv for a better type of meal and one doesnt travel on airplanes on Shabbos. Airline meals are most definitely a meal, and if and when not provided, one finds people quite upset not just because they didn't get what they paid for. Some people pack a Wurst roll just in case. Will they use "Mezonos Bread" for that roll? I actually pined for airline meals when returning from India (Hermolis meals) as they were the first warm thing I ate in two weeks that wasn't out of a suitcase. I didn't say "Feh". The El Al meals, Mehadrin, are also perfectly okay and acceptable as are the ones out of Australia. It is most dangerous to make sweeping subjective statements unless this was an attempt at humour. I also know many people who have airline meals sent to remote locations where they will be holidaying. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 09:06:51 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:06:51 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] RSRH on Fairy Tales Message-ID: <1474214817886.74589@stevens.edu> The following is from RSRH's essay On the Collaboration Between Home and School that appears in Volume VII of the Collected Writings of RSRH. The mother should be a Chava ["She who speaks," or "Giver of thoughts"] to her child; she should find her greatest delight in talking with him. After all, children thoroughly enjoy talking and listening! Their ears literally "thirst" after words of entertainment and instruction (Shema "hearing" is simply a spiritual tzama "thirsting"). The mother should not attempt to satisfy that thirst by telling her child fairy tales that are insults to the human intelligence and which, for the most part, have nothing to teach the young. (At the risk of being accused of pedagogical heresy, let us add here that we consider fairy tales the worst possible nourishment for a child's mind and imagination. We must admit we are not clever enough to understand what good it does to fill the minds of our children with notions about the world and the things in it that are so completely at odds with reality, such as the story of the wolf that eats up an old grandmother and then, sporting the grandmother's nightcap on his head, awaits the arrival of her granddaughter so that he may devour her also, or the tale of the mountain of cake through which one must eat his way, and all the other storybook themes.) Mothers certainly should have no trouble finding topics fit for their talks with their children. They truly need no artificiality for this purpose; the whole real world in which their little ones live, the nursery, the house, the garden, the city and everything else the children can see actually existing and happening around them, everything they themselves or their companions do in their everyday lives should supply ample material which mothers can utilize to help develop the potential of their children. In this manner, mothers can play a decisive role in the education of their offspring. All the skills with which our children are endowed are capable of further development and are in need of intelligent, encouraging guidance. You cannot imagine how many children are turned over to the school with skills that have remained dormant and undeveloped, or that have already taken a wrong turn due to parental neglect. The teacher can quickly notice if the right Chava has been missing from the child's.life, if the child has been left to dream and vegetate on his on his own, if he spent the most important years of his development under the influence of what he learned in the servants' quarters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:31:19 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:31:19 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: <> which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 05:29:43 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? Message-ID: R' Micha Berger posted: > Somewhat related is R Asher Weiss's pesaq on wraps, which > just reached the English side of Tvunah (a web site of his > Torah) : > > Conclusion: >> Wraps are eaten in place of bread and Pita to make a >> sandwich type food. This is commonly eaten as a meal with >> kvius seuda, hence the wraps retain the status of bread >> and their bracha is hamotzi. Is he suggesting that if one ate a wrap by itself as a snack, it would be mezonos? How it is different than a pita? > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, > regardless of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Are you saying that cake is made from belilah avah? Every cake I've ever seen my wife make comes from an easily pourable batter, not anything like a bread dough. > Similarly, he holds that cooked dough would never be a > hamotzi, even if one is qovei'ah se'udah. > I am wondering if RAW would say that one should make a > hamotzi for a spaghetti and meatball dinner too. Is there *anyone* who holds that a cooked dough such as spaghetti would ever be hamotzi? (To be clear, I am referring to a dough that is cooked but not baked, which means the entire range of pasta, but excludes bagels which are baked.) R' Gershon wrote: > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah Again, WHY? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 20:49:13 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 23:49:13 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Rolls? In-Reply-To: <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> References: <40.B5.08766.C8A99D75@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20160916105053.GA26797@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 16/09/16 06:50, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > My LOR holds that food made from belilah raqa are mezonos, regardless > of qevi'as se'udah. Unlike cake or crackers. Most cakes are belila raka. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 17 23:26:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 09:26:27 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Amah Message-ID: Rbn Katz wrires > The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the > number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. The shiur you use is that of R Chaim Naeh which is widely accepted. It is far from the largest possible Amah 1. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Amah is 21.25 inches (53.98 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.54 inches (9.00 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.89 inches (2.25 centimeters). 2. According to Rav Chaim Noeh, the Amah is 18.90 inches (48 centimeters), the Tefach is 3.15 inches (8 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 0.79 inches (2 centimeters) 3. According to the Chazon Ish, the Amah is 24 inches (60.96 centimeters), the Tefach is 4 inches (10.16 centimeters), and the Etzbah is 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). -- Eli Turkel From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 12:04:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 15:04:41 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 18/09/16 02:31, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: > < described, then they are 100% entitled to label the roll as "mezonos", and > it is unfair to accuse them of "misleading" anyone. One might argue that > they *are* misleading people, since the hechsher ought to know that most > people hold differently, but my guess is that they would respond, "We hold > this to be the ikar hadin, and if some - or most - people want to be > machmir, they are entitled to do so." >> > > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they > follow a minority opinion Who says it's a minority opinion? -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 18 13:23:34 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 16:23:34 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel posted: > see however the discussion of R. Lior's opinion (and so quotes) at > http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: > Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with > glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from > sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel > utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of > metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean > well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. I'm having trouble understanding this. I perceive a contradiction in the logic. On the one hand, glass is viewed as being like earthenware (in other words: not kasherable) because it is made of sand (i.e., earth), despite the fact that its properties are very different than earthenware (smooth, meltable, non-porous). On the other hand there seems to be a willingness to give a new status to stainless steel, which is a metal similar to the other metals that halacha has already discussed. The only thing new and different about stainless steel is that it MIGHT be less absorbent than other metals. Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals and this metal? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 09:24:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:24:31 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> See http://tinyurl.com/hhz4a63 Page 2 of 2. Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before you and I cancel from this time onward all vows, .. In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. YL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:43:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:43:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <20160920184312.GA22513@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 04:24:31PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration before : you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every : year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hararah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir his nedarim. Tir'u baTov! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 11:53:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 14:53:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash In-Reply-To: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> References: <1312c2.385a95db.450cf27a@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160920185311.GA24157@aishdas.org> On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 03:00:10AM -0400, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah wrote: :> The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200... :> largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription, :> would be 45.7cm... : The largest possible ammah, at 45.7 cm, would be 18 inches, which is the : number I've always used to translate ammos into modern measurements. My point was that the range usually cited in Ashk circles -- R Chaim Naeh, RMF and the CI -- has as its *lowest* valid value what is the *largest* possible value they held like during bayis rishon. And that's the largest possible. It would mean assuming the Water Tunnel is only 1,150 amos and they chose to round that to the nearest 100. Possible, but not overly likely. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger It's nice to be smart, micha at aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice. http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:02:35 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Wraps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160920190235.GA26301@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 08:29:43AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : R' Gershon wrote: : > Rabbi Bodner of Berachos book fame told me that he showed : > various types of wraps to Rav Elyashiv z"l & he said they : > are mezonos EVEN bekvias Seudah : : Again, WHY? Hear RYSE for yourself https://youtu.be/tpuWjf5oiZs I must confess, I couldn't make out the answer. The "doobly-do" with video reads: > R Elyashiv Paskens Paskens that wraps do not have Torisah Denahama. The > Halacha is therefore that one should make a Mezonos no matter how much > is eaten. So it's beyond just being a pourable belilah raka, it's that the result never takes on a bread-like appearance because of it. I am sorry that my previous error just confused. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Strength does not come from winning. Your micha at aishdas.org struggles develop your strength When you go http://www.aishdas.org through hardship and decide not to surrender, Fax: (270) 514-1507 that is strength. - Arnold Schwarzenegger From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 12:42:40 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Mandel, Seth via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:42:40 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? In-Reply-To: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> References: <1474388661408.53759@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <286025725be545beb15ea1f11904aad0@Mail1.nyc.ou.org> From: Professor L. Levine Sent: September 20, 2016 at 1:24:51 PM > In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim every > year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice forever. Hattarat n'darim before RhS is a late minhag and had nothing to do with Hattarat n'darim from the Torah. In fact, you need to do Hattarat n'darim for any neder you need to be mattir during the year according to the poskim. It is still a minhag and not an obligation, but almost everyone does it because it is printed in the siddur. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:37:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse Message-ID: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> I recently encountered the idea multiple "coincidental" times, so now I am wondering about it. Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To quote wikipedia : The Late Bronze Age collapse was a transition in the Aegean Region, Southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economy of the Aegean Region and Anatolia that characterised the Late Bronze Age was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages. Between c. 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the New Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan interrupted trade routes and severely reduced literacy. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter: examples include Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit. According to Robert Drews: "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again". The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the eventual rise of settled Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and Syria, Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC in the Levant, the eventual rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and after the Orientalising period of the Aegean, Classical Greece. And: Robert Drews describes the collapse as "the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire." Historicans are still arguing as to what caused it -- the orthodoxy a century ago was the invation of the Sea People, whomever there were; or it could have been climate change, volcanoes, drought, other migrations or raids, being overtaken by iron-based societies or other military tech, a "general systems collapse" etc... The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local cheiftans (Shofetim)? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger I thank God for my handicaps, for, through them, micha at aishdas.org I have found myself, my work, and my God. http://www.aishdas.org - Helen Keller Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:33:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Chesky Salomon via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:33:15 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: > Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian > records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations. To > quote wikipedia : > The obvious question: By most chronologies, this ould be late Yehoshua > early Shofetim. (As for the Sea People theory, the Pelishtim take over > Azza in 1100 BCE or so.) > > Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why > we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local > cheiftans (Shofetim)? There?s some interesting discussion of this topic on a thread titled ?The First Dark Age? and saved at Jerry Pournelle?s site: . There?s nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the wilderness, and that our re-encounter with regional powers was in a post-collapse world so we just assumed that was ?normal?. I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much interest to empires. ?Chesky Salomon From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 17:05:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 20:05:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year? Message-ID: R' Yitzchok Levine wrote: : Note the last paragraph says "Behold I make formal declaration : before: you and I cancel from this time onward all vows,.. : : In light of this, why should one have to make Hataras nedarim : every year? It seems to me that saying it once should suffice : forever. R' Micha Berger answered: > Hatarah can't be done lemafreia. It's a nice declaration of > intent, but the paragraph you're quoting isn't legally binding. Why isn't a declaration of intent valid? Especially in this case, where one makes it known to the public? > Notice that it is said /after/ the beis din was actually matir > his nedarim. Why is that relevant? Hatara of an already-made vow is an entirely different procedure than preventing future utterances from taking effect. PLEASE NOTE that I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to claim that this one-time declaration *should* be valid forever. I'm just asking what the rules are and how it works. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 13:51:49 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:51:49 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? Message-ID: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> From: "Professor L. Levine via Avodah" >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q: Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? >>>> I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 16:59:24 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:59:24 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls I wrote that it is okay for a hechsher to label such rolls as "mezonos", if that's how they hold the ikar hadin to be. R' Eli Turkel asked: > which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim > hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion Oh, I see. You're under the impression that mehadrin hashgachas don't follow minority opinions. Well, in that case, I'd have to suggest that the answer is "marketing". Hmm... I think R' Zev Sero's answer might be even better. He wrote: > Who says it's a minority opinion? which I would interpret as: Depending on which poskim count and which poskim don't count, the majority/minority can be whichever you want. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 20 21:33:04 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 23:33:04 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Do you ever recite Birkas Hamazon on crackers? In-Reply-To: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> References: <5a1bb.7d41a627.4512fb65@aol.com> Message-ID: <02737cc6-8c41-28a0-7eb7-5421b79aa808@sero.name> On 20/09/16 15:51, via Avodah wrote: > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? I don't think so. A bencher or siddur is kulo kodesh. But if you were reading benching from pages 250-253 of a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that happened to include it, I don't think you'd kiss the book. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 04:53:33 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 07:53:33 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > An airline meal which, other than to those living in the third > world, is not a true meal by any stretch of the imagination, > is not the benchmark for defining Halacha. > ... > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I thank RMGR for bringing a new question to light: EXACTLY what do we mean by "seudah" in this context? In other words: We already know that "seudah" means different things in various contexts. For "Kiddush B'Makom Seudah", the seudah can be as little as a kezayis of plain pasta. Same thing for Melaveh Malka and many other Seudos Mitzvah. But even a kebeitzah of pas gamur can be eaten outside the sukkah - it is only when one eats *more* than a kebeitzah that it must be eaten in the sukkah. And while I will grant that the word "seudah" might not appear in that context, this same shiur applies to eating a Seudah prior to performing mitzvos like ner chanuka or bedikas chometz; only if it is *more* than a kebeitzah does it constitute a Seudah of the sort that is assur in such situations. (And if anyone wants to quibble over these examples, please do so elsewhere. I'm only demonstrating that "Seudah" can have different definitions in different circumstances.) If so, it is entirely reasonable to ask: If "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", what do we mean by "as a meal"? What sort of meal do we compare it to? > There are likely many thousands who keep busy work schedules > and make a meal on the go their regular lunch, but that hardly > qualifies to set the standard to define a meal. I think it is fair to say that most of us live in three-meal-per-day societies, and that the morning meal is consistently the smallest of them. Of the other two meals, some have the midday meal as larger, and some have the evening meal larger. Among Shomrei Shabbos, the Shabbos meals are largest of all. This gives us approximately four different meal sizes, and none of them constitute the majority of one's meals. I don't think any of the four even has a clear plurality. RMGR is emphatic that the sort of lunch one eats on a workday cannot define a standard meal, but in the course of a week, the meals that one has on weekday evenings is also in the minority. So which one establishes the shiur of "as a meal" for the halacha of mezonos becoming hamotzi? Perhaps some poskim have already discussed this, or maybe we can at least find some relevant sources. For example, Mishneh Berurah 639:16 cites the Maamar Mordechai: "One who eats Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee, and similar, as is our practice every day of the year -- even though one would not say Hamotzi because he's not eating a shiur that people are usually kovea on, nevertheless, he does require a sukkah because he *is* kovea his seudah on it. Etc." The MB continues: "He simply gave a common example. The same would apply even without drinking coffee, since he *was* Kovea Seudah on Pas Kisnin. And if he *wasn't* Kovea Seudah on it, but merely ate More Than A Kebeitzah, there are differing views among the acharonim whether he should bench Layshev Basukkah." I really think that the MB is distinguishing between meals and snacks: (1) The common case of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning with coffee" *does* constitute a meal for Hilchos Sukkah. It would do so even if he skipped the coffee, and the MB does NOT specify how much mezonos he ate (except to say that it is not enough to make it Hamotzi). The deciding factor is that the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. (2) It is possible to eat that same amount of Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, in a manner that does *not* constitute Kevias Seudah, in which case, the requirement to eat it in a Sukkah is subject to machlokes. The MB doesn't doesn't spell out exactly what makes this case different from the above, but it is obvious to me that the distinction lies in the time of day: A piece of mezonos in the morning is Breakfast; the same mezonos at another time is a snack. I concede that the focus here is on Hilchos Sukkah; the MB already said very clearly that this breakfast *is* a seudah for Sukkah, but at the same time, it is *not* a seudah for Hamotzi. Why not? If it *is* Kevias Seudah for Sukkah, why does Hamotzi have different rules? One answer might be that nothing is being eaten together with this breakfast mezonos, and Chazal have already specified that the shiur to become Hamotzi in such situations would be 3-4 kebeitzim. If so, then we see that the shiur of "3-4 kebeitzim" applies across the board, to all meals, and the fact that breakfast tends to be small is irrelevant. If so, then I would imagine it to be equally irrelevant that Shabbos meals tend to be large. Rather, there must be a "standard meal" to be used in the halacha that "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal." I must be honest with myself. If this "standard meal" is neither breakfast nor a Shabbos meal, then it is probably lunch or dinner, or some combination. I have seen many groceries in frum neighborhoods where one can purchase a pre-made tuna sandwich (or other kinds) on a mezonos roll. I would still be very wary of saying Mezonos on such a sandwich at noon -- but to do so at 3 PM or 10 PM doesn't sound so outlandish any more. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 03:41:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 06:41:39 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] R Avraham In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921104139.GB6932@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 06:03:32PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote: :> I don't get this. First he says that the same mechanicsm does work :> the other way, then he says it can't -- that the self-change is :> only possible through a chessed associated with teshuvah? : : His position is that teshuva on an individual sin(s) is a normal process ... This may depend on peshat in Hil' Teshuvah 3:3, "kol mi shenicheim al hemitzvos she'asah" loses them all. The Rambam only discusses wholesale regret. The Kesef Mishnah cites Rashbi (Qidushin 40b) as a source, who cite "tzidqas tzadiq lo satzilenu beyom pish'o" (Yechezqeil 33:12). One might even derive from that gemara that we are talking about regretting mitzvos in wholesale AND (thus?) personality -- the person's tzidqus is forfeited, which sounds like personality, not deeds. : The second teshuva is the change of the entire personality. RMA claim is : that is only by a special gift from G-d. This works in both directions, : since one is a new person it can remove both sins and good deeds (then its : not really a gift). In this case one need not go through the technicalities : of teshuva. I am missing something. So, when it comes to teshuvah on the entire personality, it's a special gift from G-d and usable as teshuvah -- without which such teshuvah would be impossible. But, it's also a non-gift when used to remove deeds? There some logical ability to remove the good middos but we need a gift from the RBSO to remove the bad ones? And why "good deeds", doesn't this sort of teshuvah deal in middos, not actions? Personally, I would have guessed the reverse -- teshuvah on specific aveiros is the gift, since an event in the past is past, the action itself cannot be undone. Whereas teshuvah on character is more logical; whatever character one has at the end of the "game" is the character Hashem assesses. And then, teshuvah mei'ahavah, by turning past sins into things to regret, motivation to do better, could certainly turn those aveiros into zekhuyos. After all, those memories are now positive motivators in our character. No need to invoke beyond-teva gifts. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and micha at aishdas.org this was a great wonder. But it is much more http://www.aishdas.org wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a Fax: (270) 514-1507 "mensch"! -Rav Yisrael Salanter From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:10:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:10:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921171045.GA9930@aishdas.org> On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 08:24:33PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: : In the same way that bread we eat today would without question be deemed to : be Mezonos in Talmudic times (and we may similarly reflect - in the reverse : - on soft Matza) as we've added oil and sugar... Back a couple of more steps... The whole concept of meal changed. Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. But in general? I similarly do not understand how we made this decision when it came to the berakhah on the loaf-shaped bread itself. How did hamotzi come to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used to scoop up lefes. Even more reason to assume our breads that have more than the basic two ingredients are pas haba bekisnin; but even a bread from a simple dough isn't being used the same. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision, micha at aishdas.org yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:31:32 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:31:32 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] a story for our time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921173132.GB9930@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 09:28:31PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote: : Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 12:52 PM : To: Zichron Shlomo Cong Nice story, puts out foibles into clear focus, but one tangential point on something the author misspoke. ... : One day, word went out that the king was planning on visiting the city! : Additionally, his Majesty intended to visit the Jewish Quarter, and : agreed to grant an audience to each and every person living there[iii] : and will be open to considering all their personal needs![iv] ... And in fn. iii it says (translation/iteration mine): : [iii] On Rosh Hashanah, kol ba'ei olam overin lefanav kivney maron. : (Mishnah RH 16a) In 1960s and '70s, America went through an identity shift. Once the US called itself a Melting Pot, where people's ethnicities were expected to be toned down in an attempt to assimilated and become "Real Americans". Then was the development of ethnic pride, a rise of the hyphenated American (Italian-American, Irish-American). By the time David Dinkens became major of NYC, his speechwriter coined the idiom of America as a "glorious mosaic", a single picture assembled from distinct ethnic tiles. I see humanity in the same terms, although as the priesthood tile, being Benei Yisrael is a unique privilege, one that brings meaning to the notion of Am haNivchar. A late-20th cent way of framing what is basically RSRH's vision of humanity. But the mosaic requires paying exact attention to the dialectic between the particularism that makes it possible for us to be a Goy Qadosh with the universalism necessary to be the Mamlekhes Kohanim that brings that qedushah to the whole mosaic of humanity. In American terms, this became the endless discussions of my youth about the differences between the Jewish American and the American Jew. I believe the author erred on this very matter, insufficiently preserving the universalist message of RH when trying to create a particularist message. How else can someone conflate "kol ba'ei olam" with the Jewish Quarter? Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The true measure of a man micha at aishdas.org is how he treats someone http://www.aishdas.org who can do him absolutely no good. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Samuel Johnson From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 10:51:58 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:51:58 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on metal pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160921175158.GA9670@aishdas.org> On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 04:23:34PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: : http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/blias-in-todays-pots-and-pans : A poster there gives Rav Lior's original Hebrew, and this translation of it: :> Even according to the opinion of the Rama, who is stringent with :> glass utensils, saying that since they are initially made from :> sand their ruling is like earthenware. But stainless steel :> utensils, that don't hardly absorb anything and are made of :> metal not sand, it is permissible to cook in them meat, to clean :> well and after to cook milk the same day, and the reverse as well. ... : Why is there a great reluctance to distinguish between earthenware and : glass, while being far less reluctant to distinguish between those metals : and this metal? You are thinking the way the MB would -- if the sevara applies in one place, why not apply it in the other? But as learning AhS acclimates you to, sometimes halakhah and sevara diverge; there are other factors that can go into pesaq. It could well be that they disagree with the Rama on the issue of sevara, and if given a blank slate they would distinguish between cheres and glass as well. But rather than a blank slate, they are dealing in a world where the Rama pasqened lechumerah centuries before them. There are even cases where a poseiq would continue along a precedent set lequlah if he didn't think the gap between the quality of the sevaros were too far to overlook. (Where "too far" is a shiqul hadaas issue. Another instance of why we require a poseiq to have had shimush.) But going meiqil against the Rama's accepted precedent? That requires a much higher threshold than using the very same sevara in a case that post-dates him (stainless steel). Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 11:08:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Lisa Liel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 21:08:02 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse In-Reply-To: References: <20160920203738.GA13579@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7343a4ef-0d5b-81a8-2add-4148e506f7ee@starways.net> On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote: > On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian >> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations... >> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why >> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local >> cheiftans (Shofetim)? ... > There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which > directly points to any sort of regional collapse. I wonder whether the > collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the > wilderness... > I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to > establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much > interest to empires. As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire"). The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the 1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s. The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the 1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s, what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards; he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for "he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen to understand. So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why? Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense if there wasn't actually any time between those two points. In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped goddesses alongside God. The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates, and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell. The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev. Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast. Lisa From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 15:45:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:45:59 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a proper unhurried meal for that time and place. [BTW Pas HaBaAh BeKisnin is simply corrupted bread, altered to the point where it is no longer seen as the bread used in a normal meal - a very subjective evaluation, which explains why the Halachic definitions no longer apply] Similarly, with defining a Seudah; a workday hurried lunch no matter that it is eaten by a vast majority, is not seen, even by those who regularly eat it, as a meal. Meals eaten with ones eye on the clock do not qualify as a Seudah. It is insulting if amongst all the guests at the Shabbos table being served Shabbos food, one fellow is served with an airline meal or the hurried business day lunch they usually eat. R Micha observes that Talmudic meals were foods [Lefes = LePas?] consumed on/with some flatbread. This explains why all foods are Tafel to bread and one Beracha of HaMotzi covers the entire meal. For us that is the equivalent of sandwiches, which accordingly calls into question the validity of making HaMotzi these days for all the foods served at the meal. Many restaurants these days do not even put bread on the table, one must ask for it. Loaf shaped breads I presume were used by spreading the food on it or were eaten together with the other foods served at the meal, again something that is becoming less common. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 00:59:59 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:59:59 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: The second volume of Mesoras Moshe of piskei halacha of RMF recently appeared. These are based on coversations of RMF with his grandson R. Mordechai Tendler and edited and gone over by several talmidim of RMF and authorized by the family I glanced at it quickly and one psak I saw was that RMF discouraged using whole wheat challot on shabbat. He felt that the darker color was not kavod shabbat and generations in Europe ate white challah I would venture that this depends on the times and would be less relevant today from even the recent times of RMF What I found more disturbing was the conclusion that some people have a craziness that not only is it healthier to eat whole wheat but that never eat white bread. This is a craziness and one should not consider them ------------------------------------------------ A sefer Halichot Ha-Ish of piskei halacha from Rav Elyashiv was also just published (I was in Gittlers in Bnei Brak yesterday) ------------------------------- On a similar level RYBS was very insistent on wearing a white shirt on shabbat. I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time dependent? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 20:31:28 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:31:28 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes Message-ID: It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING THAT SCREEN? Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia however, probably Assur due to health and hygiene - you'd need to do like the Mohalim, use a pipette. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 01:53:06 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:53:06 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] mezonos rolls Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked: "which brings up the question of what is a mehadrim hashgacha if they follow a minority opinion" A mehadrin hashgacha generally tries to fulfill all opinions. In this case it is impossible to be machmir and follow all opinions as they are contradictory, you either have to make mezonos or hamotzi you can't do both. Therefore, they have to take a stand on the actual issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:38:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Simon Montagu via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:38:37 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Mobile Devices Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 11:51 PM, Rn Toby Katz via Avodah < avodah at lists.aishdas.org> wrote: > > > I have never recited Birkas Hamazon on crackers but today for the first > time I recited Birkas Hamazon on my cellphone. Here is my question: When > I close a bentsher or a siddur I kiss it. When I finish bentshing off my > phone should I kiss the phone before closing that screen? > I have had the same question when praying from the siddur app on my cellphone or the scans from siddurim on my Kindle, and learning from ebooks. It seems like a classic heftza/gavra question: do you kiss a siddur or sefer because of *its* kedusha, or to express *your* reverence for the mitzva and the text? I don't know the answer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:16:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:16:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Individual vs. Society Message-ID: From Nishmat Avraham -I wonder if the wonder is based on the assumption that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts? (that is one could consider the effect on the justice system of a judges decision differently than an jndividual citizen's "rights") Rav Yonah Emanuel zt"l also commented that he did not know of a source which states that it would be permissible for a Dayan to pass judgment in favor of a litigant who was guilty if he was threatened with his life to do so. He thought that nevertheless it would be difficult to believe that a Dayan would be permitted to pronounce a guilty party innocent even if he was threatened with his life, for if so this would lead to a total collapse of law and order. I wondered why this situation should be any different from any other transgression that is permitted in order to save life. And one is permitted to save oneself by robbing someone else provided that he remunerates him afterwards for his loss. [Choshen Mishpat, Chapter 1, pg. 186.] KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 06:17:47 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan Message-ID: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment (my free translation), "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 04:51:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:51:30 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger asked: > The whole concept of meal changed. > > Their meals were generally a bunch of foods you ate on/with some > flatbread -- pita, laffa / taboon, Indian rota, dosa, etc... > Those foods being "lefes". This is what we're talking about when > we speak of someone being qoveia se'udah on bread, and the other > foods (minus the usual) being covered by its berakhos. > > Picture a typical Israeli or Sepharadi appetizer course. > > I therefore wonder how we knew these rules still applied as those > of us in the golah outside the Middle East evolved away from that > kind of meal. And why they would. Maybe sandwiches are similar > enough to think the same notion of qevi'as se'udah would apply. > But in general? I will agree that bread figures into our meals far less prominently than theirs. But even then, the whole meal was covered by Hamotzi, even those foods that were not eaten literally together with the bread. Hamotzi covers the meal because the bread is the ikar and the meal is the tafel. But there are two different sorts of ikar/tafel relationship: One governs the decision of what bracha to say on a salad and other food mixtures, and that's what you're thinking of when you mention sandwiches and Israeli appetizers. But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the king of all foods. My meal is covered by Hamotzi not only if I actually eat the food with bread - it works even for the food not eaten with bread, simply because of bread's high status. For more information on this sort of ikar/tafel, I suggest looking into why Hagafen covers all drinks. When I drink enough wine at kiddush, it covers the Coke I drink afterward, and I don't need to dip the Coke into the wine for this to work. It is simply because of wine's status as the king of drinks. And so too for bread and other foods. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 08:31:45 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:31:45 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah Message-ID: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> >From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." Scientists have finally been able to read the oldest biblical text ever found. The 2,000-year-old scroll has been in the hands of archaeologists for decades. But it hasn't been possible to read it, since it was too dangerous to open the charred and brittle scroll. Scientists have now been able to read it, using special imaging technology that can look into what's inside. And it has found what was in there: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardised form. ... The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that's in use today has is more than 2,000 years old. ... The biblical scroll examined in the study was first discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at Ein Gedi, the site of an ancient Jewish community near the Dead Sea. Inside the ancient synagogue's ark, archaeologists found lumps of scroll fragments. The synagogue was destroyed in an ancient fire, charring the scrolls. The dry climate of the area kept them preserved... The researchers say it is the first time a biblical scroll has been discovered in an ancient synagogue's holy ark, where it would have been stored for prayers, and not in desert caves like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery holds great significance for scholars' understanding of the development of the Hebrew Bible, researchers say. In ancient times, many versions of the Hebrew Bible circulated. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century B.C., featured versions of the text that are radically different than today's Hebrew Bible. Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century. The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study. "This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." ... Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp, micha at aishdas.org And the Torah, its light. http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2 Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 10:11:20 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:11:20 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Kissing Holy Texts in Unholy volumes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21/09/16 22:31, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > It is true that we would likely not kiss and show honour to a > 1000-page encyclopaedia volume that included a bencher or siddur > HOWEVER the question was asked I suspect with great care - When I > finish bentshing off my phone should I kiss the phone BEFORE CLOSING > THAT SCREEN?> > > Kissing that screen is like kissing THAT page in the 1000-page encyclopaedia The question was not about kissing the screen being displayed; it's not tangible and can't be kissed. The question was about kissing the *phone*, which has no more connection with the bencher displayed on it than the cover of the encyclopaedia has with the bencher it contains. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 21 22:28:17 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:28:17 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202FDEC5-92C6-4EC4-ABEB-2AA0E98D23F1@gmail.com> RMB wrote: > How did hamotzi come > to be applied to loaf shaped breads altogether, since they aren't used > to scoop up lefes. I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the question of herring on a piece of bread is a question. What's more important, the herring or the bread. Depends on the person? They didn't use herring in Sefardi countries and of course German Jews saw herring as the poor Polish/Russian food. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 02:46:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 05:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 03:28:17PM +1000, Isaac Balbin wrote: : I'm not sure I follow. Where is your source that bread must function : as a scoop tool to be bread. I've certainly seen Tshuvos where the : question of herring on a piece of bread is a question... You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. Yes, herring on challah would be lefes. And, as I noted, a sandwitch is pretty similar as well. But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that Chazal take it for granted. Tir'u baTov! -Micha -- Micha Berger The meaning of life is to find your gift. micha at aishdas.org The purpose of life http://www.aishdas.org is to give it away. Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Pablo Picasso From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 03:40:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 20:40:36 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> References: <20160922094644.GA12465@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <7F57E78D-6A01-4DEB-8C35-748D187D4FDA@balb.in> On 22 Sep. 2016, at 7:46 pm, Micha Berger wrote: > You're skipping WAY ahead in history. I am talking about how people ate > when Chazal set up the idea of kevi'as se'udah. > As a matter of historical fact, in Chazal's mileau, kevi'as se'udah on > bread was very literally true. That's how people ate. And when you read > the gemaros with that cultural awareness, you see how in these sugyos, > they are referring to that style of eating; such as when they refer to > hamotzi and bentching covering lefes and not demanding separate berakhos. ... This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 11:06:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:06:11 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Why should one have to make Hataras Nedarim every year Message-ID: As an aside I saw in the sefer of customs of Rav Elyashiv that in his shul he sat with 2 other talmidim and were matir neder for the entire congregation. Then the 3 got up and another 3 talmidim were matir neder for R Elyashiv and the other two -------------------------------------------------------- On another matter in the sefer it brings down that when R Elyashiv got married the invitation listed his mother's name (Musha) . In some circles today It its only Rabbi and Mrs. X and the mother's own name is never listed. I saw also the same thing in the wedding invitation of Rav Chaim Brisk for his son. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:45:39 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:39 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 1:39 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: > And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal > in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out > of the succa. Yes, we're required to eat even small amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah but remember that's without a Beracha. It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of Mezonos in the Sukkah. Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 20:38:42 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:38:42 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir Rabi writes: > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does not > constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but what we perceive > as respectable living, that defines TKTd. And yet the poskim that I am familiar with are mechayev that kind of meal in Succa. The generally accepted psak is that you can't eat any mezonos out of the succa. On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts of > Mezonos in the Sukkah. I meant more then a kzayis. R' Akiva Miller wrote: > But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the > king of all foods. There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:18:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:18:26 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Sep 2016 2:13 PM, "Marty Bluke" wrote: >> It is astonishing that any Posek would require eating even tiny amounts >> of Mezonos in the Sukkah. > I meant more then a kzayis. I meant, LeiShev BaSukkah From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:35:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:35:57 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, September 23, 2016, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > I meant, LeiShev BaSukka > And so did I. The minhag that I remember in America is when you visit someone on succos they give you cake to make a leishev basucca. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:10:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:10:38 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: R' Eli Turkel asked > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time > dependent?" Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 22 21:47:44 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 23:47:44 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <1cd190e3-a4b7-6073-526a-26aaa5672933@sero.name> On 22/09/16 10:31, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote: >>From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) > the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about > what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini > era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. > > To jump to the point "100% identical", "This is quite amazing for us," [Dr > Emmanuel Tov, Hebrew U] said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed." What is the fragment in the picture, though? I can't make head or tail of it, and it certainly doesn't look to me like any part of Vayikra. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:16:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:16:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Reliability of the Mesorah In-Reply-To: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> References: <20160922153145.GG1594@aishdas.org> Message-ID: <20160923111611.GA20908@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 11:31:45AM -0400, Micha Berger wrote: : From (compressed from http://www.independent.co.uk...) : the Independent (UK) tech column, with AP material folded in, about : what it took to be able to read a copy of Vayiqra from the bayis sheini : era. And not from some group of minim in the desert, but in use, in a shul. The NY Times provided more info (and has a photo). Modern Technology Unlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll By NICHOLAS WADESEPT. 21, 2016 ... The scroll's content, the first two chapters of the Book of Leviticus, has consonant... that are identical to those of the Masoretic text, the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible... The Dead Sea scrolls, those found at Qumran and elsewhere around the Dead Sea, contain versions quite similar to the Masoretic text but with many small differences. The text in the scroll found at the En-Gedi excavation site in Israel decades ago has none, according to Emanuel Tov, an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ... The date of the En-Gedi scroll is the subject of conflicting evidence. A carbon-14 measurement indicates that the scroll was copied around A.D. 300. But the style of the ancient script suggests a date nearer to A.D. 100. "We may safely date this scroll" to between A.D. 50 and 100, wrote Ada Yardeni, an expert on Hebrew paleography, in an article in the journal Textus. Dr. Tov said he was "inclined toward a first-century date, based on paleography." ... "It doesn't tell us what was the original text, only that the Masoretic text is a very ancient text in all of its details," Dr. Segal said. "And we now have evidence that this text was being used from a very early date by Jews in the land of Israel." :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea micha at aishdas.org of instincts. http://www.aishdas.org - Rav Yisrael Salanter Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 04:45:54 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:45:54 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", I asked if any authorities specify the kind of meal that is intended in the phrase "mezonos becomes hamotzi when it is eaten as a meal", and I quoted some of what the Mishneh Berurah writes in the context of Sukkah. R' Meir G. Rabi responded: > The Mitzvah of Sukkah is defined by Teshvu KeEin TaDuru [TKTd] > Its not the size of the meal nor the time quantity of any > activity that defines what must be performed in the Sukkah. It > is the perceived quality of that activity that makes TKTd. > > A hurried everyday lunch and a standard hurried breakfast, does > not constitute TKTd because its not, *what we usually do* but > what we perceive as respectable living, that defines TKTd. > > As R Akivah Miller said, the nature of the situation of "Pas > Habaa B'Kisnin in the morning" constitutes Kevias Seudah for > Hilchos Sukkah. I suggest this is not a hurried bite, but a > proper unhurried meal for that time and place. Hilchos Sukkah can shine much light on other suedah-related halachos. The end of MB 639:16 quotes the Shaarei Teshuva, and he writes: "On Shabbos and Yom Tov in the morning, when one makes Kiddush and eats Pas Kisnin in place of the meal, ... all opinions allow saying Layshev Basukkah. Since he is eating it to meet the legal requirements of a seudah because of Kiddush, it's okay to say the bracha on the sukkah, because his thoughts make it into "keva". During Chol [Hamoed], it is not appropriate to say the bracha because of Safek Brachos L'hakel, but the Minhag HaOlam is to say the bracha even during Chol [Hamoed]. In order to rescue oneself from this possible Bracha L'vatala, one should make sure NOT to exit [the sukkah] immediately after eating. Rather, he should sit there for some time, and when he says the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, he should have in mind both the eating and the sitting afterward." This is quite similar to what RMGR wrote. It is unavoidably clear that a hurried meal differs from a relaxed meal for TKTd. On the other hand, that's only for Mezonos. As I read the MB, if the meal is Hamotzi, then it does *not* matter whether it is hurried or relaxed. Please carefully read MB 639:15, where he compares the two: "If one is kovea on Mezonos, that is to say, he eats with a group, or he eats a significant amount such as one makes a seudah of, and he is not merely eating "a little more than a kebaytzah", [then it has to be in the Sukkah -Mechaber]. However, see the Magen Avraham who questions this, and his opinion is that it is exactly like bread, where a little more than a kebaytzah obligates one in sukkah. But for saying the bracha of Layshev Basukkah, the acharonim hold that one should not say the bracha unless he is being kovea as written in Shulchan Aruch." (By the way, the Mechaber here refers to two types of grain products as "pas" and "tavshil". One might think that "tavshil" refers to only to cooked foods like oatmeal or pasta, and that Pas Habaa B'kisnin would either be included in "pas", or maybe it is a third category. However, nothing I have seen suggests that there is a third category in Hilchos Sukkah, and everything suggests that for Hilchos Sukkah, pas habaa b'kisnin is exactly the same as oatmeal. Thus, while their vernacular was to label these two categories as "pas" and "tavshil", those categories exactly match to what our vernacular labels as "hamotzi" and "mezonos".) Okay, enough with Hilchos Sukkah, let's get back to hilchos brachos. Beur Halacha on this spot ("Im kovea alav, chashiv keva") compares Sukkah to "mezonos becoming hamotzi". He writes that the determining criterion for Sukkah is TKTd, and that this is very subjective: "Whatever HE is kovea on, that's a kevius that needs a sukkah." But he refers us to Siman 168, where this is *not* the rule for brachos. Rather, if one eats pas habaa b'kisnin of an amount that PEOPLE are kovea on, that's when it becomes Hamotzi. Therefore, we CANNOT use TKTd to enlighten us about mezonos becoming hamotzi. We must determine how people in general consider it. And I don't know if modern authorities have discussed this. My personal opinion is that I usually eat three meals every day. Many of those meals are pretty small, but if I consider myself to be a "three meal per day" person, then I am implicitly defining "meal" to include small meals. For reasons that are unclear even to me, I tend to draw the line between "small meal" and "large snack" by the time of day. Many people will say mezonos on a single slice of pizza, and hamotzi on three slices, and they avoid eating two slices. I was once discussing this with someone, and he said that if he ate two slices at noon he'd want to say hamotzi, and that the same two slices at 3pm would be mezonos. I don't know if he ever acted thusly, but my sentiments are the same. It seems that RMGR would NOT consider me to be a "three meal per day" person, and he is entitled to that opinion. I think it would be very nice if we lived in a world where most people ate three "proper unhurried meals" (as RMGR described them), but I think it is mostly aristocrats who live in that world. Or maybe I am looking at this too harshly. Do most meals in a fast-food restaurant count as a "quick bite", or are they sufficiently "proper and unhurried"? I don't know. I have vague memories of a sefer that claimed that Birkas HaMazon would not be d'Oraisa if one did not have some sort of drink at the meal, because without the drink there is no "v'savata". I can't help wonder if that is relevant to our subject. Suppose someone ate the AMOUNT of Pas Habaa B'Kinsnin that would usually count as a meal, but he ate it standing, without a table, and with no drink. This could easily happen if someone had 3-4 slices of pizza at a shopping mall. Might it still be mezonos? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:31:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:31:22 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 22:45, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no Beracha is made > even when sleeping the night. Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! On 22/09/16 22:38, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Akiva Miller wrote: >> But there is another concept also, that bread is the ikar because it is the >> king of all foods. > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until recently bread > was the king of all foods. But that has changed. In today's world bread > is in no way shape or form the king of foods anymore. As someone pointed > out many fancy restaurants don't even serve bread any more. This also has implications elsewhere. The halacha is that if a person who does not eat pas palter is a guest in the home of someone who does, he *must* eat the bread he is given, because not to do so would be an insult to the host. This only applies to bread, since it's the ikkar food, so a host feels it keenly if one refuses to eat it. With other foods the host doesn't mind if a guest doesn't eat, because maybe he doesn't like it, or is just not that hungry. Now that the social status of bread has changed, I wonder whether this halacha now applies to (1) no foods; or (2) all foods; or (3) some foods but not others. (In the din of pas palter itself we can say that since the original gezera included this exception we can use it even when the reason for the exception no longer applies.) -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 07:41:26 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:41:26 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 22/09/16 23:10, Marty Bluke via Avodah wrote: > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> > dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? They wore long white tunics, whereas during the week workmen wore short tunics, which were generally no longer very white, even if they started out that way. Still, I agree that what's special about white is its social status, which no longer exists. -- Zev Sero Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire zev at sero.name meaning merely by appending them to the two other words `God can'. Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk it about God. -- C S Lewis From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 08:13:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (M Cohen via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:13:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen ======= Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 9.1.0.2894, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.22240) http://free.pctools.com/ ======= From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:23:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:23:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RAM: <> On cast iron see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), and all of which have very different properties than clay or cast iron pots. David Riceman From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 13:00:15 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 20:00:15 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> References: <06e501d215ad$07e59e60$17b0db20$@com> Message-ID: <6ed410543bb94ff6b257f6a9e6f8bc77@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> RJR writes .. The minchat chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following comment, "it appears in truth that a minor is subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in truth he is bound to mitzvot." See igros moshe when he discusses the schar for mitzvos done while a person is a katon. He says they receive schar as a mitzuveh v'oseh ! (not as an aino mitzuve v'oseh) Mordechai cohen Ty. A quick bar ilan search finds it as Y"D 2:8 where both sides of the question have possible support; A"S KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 23 09:29:38 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (David Riceman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 12:29:38 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. DR From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 04:11:37 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Isaac Balbin via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 21:11:37 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F5D2121-3C9E-4512-870C-48C1F0F8C253@gmail.com> From: Marty Bluke via Avodah > R' Eli Turkel asked >> I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear in time >> dependent?" > Of course it is completely time dependent, Did Chazal wear white shirts? > No one even 200 years ago wore suits white shirts and ties on shabbos. > In fact even 100 years ago the typical Lithuanian yeshiva bachur dressed > differently then today (just look at Professor Levine's pictures) and > would not be recognized as a yeshiva bachur today. This is true, although on Yom Kippur, of course, males and females have a universal long time minhag to wear white. One thing that bothers me is a trend NOT to wear a suit on Shabbos because the businessman says that they wear a suit and tie on a Yom Chol, and they don't like to be dressed in "work attire". Perhaps the only way out is to wear a longer Kapote! To me, it just doesn't work that you stand at work in respectable clothes (suit, depending on vocation) and on Shabbos, it's less so. I understand in Israel, especially years ago, many didn't have or wear suits. Some had one suit, and it was for Shabbos. Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers certainly looked like they were Shabbosdik. In my Yeshivah during the week they didn't wear white shirts during the week, so it stood out on Shabbos. Yom Tov takes it one step further in terms of clothing quality. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sat Sep 24 19:44:31 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2016 22:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Status of katan In-Reply-To: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> References: <2259681829bb4badbacb08be033b218c@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Message-ID: <20160925024431.GA3427@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 01:17:47PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote: : The Minchat Chinuch in mitzvah 17 [subsection 14] makes the following : comment (my free translation), "It appears in truth that a minor is : subject to commandments, just that it's not applicable to say that the : Torah warns him, since he is not a being of wisdom (bar daat) but in : truth he is bound to mitzvot." Any earlier articulation of this concept? But what about saying that it's only medin chinukh and only derabbanan? The MC is machmir? Wouldn't this mean that a qatan is just as chayav as a gadol, and the only difference in onesheim? Nowadays, without BD, even that's moot. Gut Voch! -Micha From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 08:00:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 11:00:12 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > But a typical Ashkenazi Shabbos meal, and for that matter for > most Sepharadim today, we do not use bread in a manner nearly > as central to the meal as Chazal were taking for granted. > > I did not assert that bread MUST function as a scoop; I ASKED > how we knew this was not the criterion in question. Given that > Chazal take it for granted. Everyone interested in this should see Mishne Brura 177:1-3 and Aruch Hashulchan 177:1-2. My usual practice would be to quote them directly, but in this case, I think that would be a case of "kol hamosif, gorea". You all should really look inside and see for yourself, and judge for yourself. I want to be emphatic about this, because there are several critical terms they use, which seem to be synonyms at first glance. It is clear to me that their precise meanings are very nuanced, and when an author chooses to use one or another, it can lead different readers in different directions. For example, Mechaber 177:1 uses these phrases in his opening lines: D'varim haba'im b'soch haseudah D'varim haba'im machmas haseudah D'varim shederech likboa seudah aleihem l'lafays bahem es hapas That said, I want to whet your appetite by saying this: - Mechaber 177:1 lists some foods that are covered by HaMotzi even when eaten separately from the bread. MB 1 points out that the list includes porridge, which is *not* eaten together with bread. - Both MB and AhS give their respective explanations of *why* HaMotzi covers everything. - Both MB and AhS give their views on someone who has no desire for the bread other than to avoid the brachos. I could offer my opinions now, but I'd rather wait until after the chevrah has looked inside. Under the subject line "KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi", R' Marty Bluke wrote: > There is no question that at the time of Chazal and until > recently bread was the king of all foods. But that has changed. > In today's world bread is in no way shape or form the king of > foods anymore. As someone pointed out many fancy restaurants > don't even serve bread any more. > > Therefore we have 2 choices. We can say that since Chazal were > kovea the berachos this way that doesn't change even though > society changed, like by tereifos and other halachos. Or maybe > we should say that since society changed hilchos berachos > should change as well. Not change in the sense of the Halacha > actually changing but change in the application. As RHS says, > it used to be that sif 1 applied based on the circumstances > now that circumstances changed sif 2 applies. Indeed, "sif 1" is the very famous "bread is king and covers everything." But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 06:08:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 16:08:05 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] shaking hands with a woman Message-ID: >From memory Maharal Diskin held that shaking hands with a woman was yehoreg ve-al ya-avot and he very harshly criticized RSRH see http://www.jpost.com/Not-Just-News/Snack-Bites/Swiss-judge-Muslim-students-must-shake-female-teachers-hands-or-face-fine-468527 -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Sun Sep 25 14:23:57 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:23:57 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Women and Davening Message-ID: <1474838642943.89565@stevens.edu> From http://tinyurl.com/zsfk2vp CConclusion >From our discussion, we see that according to the letter of the law women should daven at least twice a day. Those who are busy with children are exempt, but should recite a short tefilah in the morning before going about their day. For those women who are able to daven, it should be noted that they do not have to feel that they must daven the entire Shacharis. It is not all or nothing. Below is a chart that lists which parts of tefilah women should daven (those who have time to daven). Modeh Ani - Yes Birchos Hashachar - Yes Birchas HaTorah - Yes Korbanos - No Pesukei D'zimrah - No according to many poskim Birchos Krias Shema - If she wants (Ashkenazi; some Sephardi poskim permit a Sephardi woman as well) Shema Yisrael and Baruch Shem - Yes Emes V 'yatziv until ga'al Yisrael - Yes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 04:37:53 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:37:53 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Pas Palter Habaa B'kisnin Message-ID: In the thread "Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi", R' Isaac Balbin wrote: > This does not gel nicely with the Halachos of Pas > Akum/Palter. As I recall everyone who discusses these Dinim > talks of bread as a STAPLE eg how long/far does one wait/go > before consuming Pas Palter. Indeed, it is ironic that when > the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of > the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that > they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you > want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the > notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at > times, but potatoes and the like would have been there. I see an entirely different irony here, that of the power of "lo plug", both l'chumra and l'kula. On the one hand, the halacha of Pas Akum was instituted specifically because bread is such a basic staple food. In contrast, Pas Habaa B'Kisnin is - by definition! - a snack food, I.e. NOT the staple of most meals. Yet, the halachos apply to both. It seems that when Chazal enacted the issue on Pas Akum, they chose to include even Pas Habaa B'Kisnin, even though it is not a staple food, and the reasons that apply to non-Jewish bread would not apply to non-Jewish snacks. My guess is that it was a Lo Plug - Chazal thought it simpler to make the same halacha for a Pas, whether it is a staple or a snack. But the second part of the story is odd too: People accepted this prohibition as far as non-Jewish *homemade* bread, but the prohibition on non-Jewish *commercial* bread was too difficult, so it was rescinded. I can't help but wonder: Given that Pas Habaa B'kisnin is not a staple food, I presume that they could have been able to give up on non-Jewish snack foods. The halacha could have been that Pas Palter is allowed only for Pas Gamur, but that the prohibition remains in place for Pas Habaa B'Kisnin. My guess is again that it is a Lo Plug: One halacha for all Pas. The result is an interesting kula: If Pas Habaa B'Kisnin had not been included in the halachos of Pas Akum/Palter, I presume that Bishul Akum would have applied to it. (In the phrase "bishul akum", the word "bishul" refers to any sort of cooking, even without liquid.) In such a world, a wedding cake would have to be made with Jewish involvement. (I am presuming that a wedding cake is "oleh al shulchan melachim" even if other cakes aren't.) But because cake is subject to the halachos of Pas Akum and not regular Bishul Akum, it can be made by a commercial bakery without any Jewish involvement. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 06:12:36 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:12:36 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Halacha Yomis - Pas Yisroel, Pas Palter, Pas Ba'al Habayis Message-ID: <1474981956560.727@stevens.edu> >From today's OU Halacha Yomis Q. Can you please explain the terms Pas Yisroel, pas palter and pas ba'al habayis? What is the halachic status of these items? A. Pas Yisroel refers to bread that was baked with specific Jewish involvement. This involvement can take one of three forms: The bread is placed into the oven by a Yisroel, the oven is lit by a Yisroel, or a Yisroel stokes the flames or throws in a chip of wood. However, if a Yisroel was not involved in any of these steps in the baking of the bread, even if they prepared the dough or shaped the loaves, this would not be Pas Yisroel. Pas palter refers to bread that was baked for business purposes by a non-Jewish bakery without Jewish involvement. Pas ba'al habayis refers to bread that was baked by a non-Jew for his own consumption, without Jewish involvement. Both pas palter and pas ba'al habayis are part of a general category known as pas akum. Pas ba'al habayis should not be eaten, except in certain extenuating circumstances. (Yoreh De'ah 112:7-8). Regarding pas palter, the Sefardim follow the ruling of Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah 112:2), that if Pas Yisroel is available, one should purchase only Pas Yisroel. However, if it is not available, or if it is of inferior quality, then one may consume pas palter. In contrast, the Ashkenazim, as per the ruling of Rama (Yoreh De'ah 112:2 ) allow pas palter. Nonetheless, it is a meritorious stringency to consume only Pas Yisroel. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 603) advises that even those who eat pas palter during the year, should only eat Pas Yisroel during the Aseres Yemai Teshuva. Additionally, Mishnah Berurah (242:6) writes that it is proper to honor Shabbos and Yom Tov by eating only Pas Yisroel on those special days. See our Pas Yisroel List - 5777 at OUKosher.org for OU certified Pas Yisroel brands and products. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 07:19:41 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 17:19:41 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Akiva Miller wrote: "But as I pointed out above, the halacha was already aware of people who try to minimize their bread intake, and this "sif 2" appears very clearly in the MB, the AhS, and many other acharonim. It's NOT a new situation where we need imaginative and inventive gedolim to break totally new ground; much of the work has already been done. We only need to apply the existing rules to our situations." The rules in the shulchan aruch distinguish between things that are part of the meal and those that are not part of the meal, but meal seems to be defined by bread. Therefore, I do think it is a new situation. The Aruch Hashulchan writes an expression that there are a few rich people who don't want to eat a lot of bread so we aren't going to change the halacha for them. We see clearly that the majority of people still viewed bread as the main part of the meal and it was only a few indiviudals who didn't want to eat bread. Today it is just the opposite. Many people never eat bread (except for a kzayis on Shabbos and Yom Tov) and bread is not king anymore. I don't think you can easily apply rules made for a bread eating society where bread was the main focus and meals were defined by bread, to a non-bread eating society. The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: 1. The food is tafel to the bread 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? The Mishna Berura seems to argue on this and therefore is mistapek what is the din if you eat the bread just to patur the other food? The Aruch Hashulchan on the other hand has no safek he says based on 2 that you are definitely patur. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 09:40:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] meh chori Message-ID: in nitzavim , the scenario is described that after the cataclysmic destruction of the land , the later generations and the gentiles will ask the source of destruction , and they will say it was due to violation of the covenant by the jewish people. i would contend that this has not happened yet as described for the following reasons. at the time of the destruction of the first temple , the calamity would have been attributed to the overwhelming power of the Babylonian gods. In the 2000 yr post the destruction of the second temple, the cause of victory would have been initially attributed to both the Roman army and their superior gods. since then , the gentiles would agree that the jews deserved destruction because they refused to bow to the Wood [cross] or Stone [kaaba]. so while chazal [bneichem asher yakimu achareichem] discerned the causes of destructions as they did , the gentiles blamed violation of the Covenant--- but Moshe certainly could not have meant that the Destruction was caused by the Jews not converting to christianity or islam. is this correct? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 10:44:30 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 10:44:30 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim Message-ID: that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. questions: 1---- rice vinegar= sweet. should that be considered 'chamutzim' 2---- jalapeno/serrano/etc are not bitter and not sour . they are spicy---a category that did not exist in ashkenazi cooking. can we assume these are excluded. 3---- a person enjoys significantly chrain , pickles, etc . should his simchat yomtov over ride this 'gam nohagim' to use the author's lashon? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 11:22:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:22:14 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers righs Message-ID: I am learning the gemara towards the end of BM that there is a mitzvah to pay workers on time. The CC states that since the gemara elsewhere states that wages are due only at the end for the mitzvah one should not pay ahead of time. Thus for example R Zilberstein deals with question of sherut taxis from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem where they demand to be paid ahead of time (his answer to pat the driver once the taxi reaches the main road - it is not clear the taxi drivers will agree to this solution) Two questions 1) Since the mitzvah to pay the worker on time is explained that he relies on the wages for his living - why should there be a problem to pay ahead of time even though one is not required 2) Since in general monetary matters are ruled by agreements why can't the two sides agree to pay ahead of time Simple example - a baby sitter who leaves before the parents come home. Why can't she be paid ahead of time instead of leaving the money on the table and she makes a "kinyan" when leaving. -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:17:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Zev Sero via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 15:17:18 -0500 Subject: [Avodah] chamutzim umrurim In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27/09/16 12:44, saul newman via Avodah wrote: > that is the lashon of the matteh ephraim about those who are noheig not to eat sour or bitter in the 10 days. What is his source? The only sources I've seen say "chomet", which I assume is not because of its flavour but because it's a siman of the opposite of bracha. -- Zev Sero May you be written down and sealed zev at sero.name for a good and productive year From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 13:26:21 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:26:21 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and Pesak and RMH's essay Message-ID: On 9/13/2016 11:19 AM, Micha Berger wrote: > On Sun, Sep 11, 2016 at 05:21:20PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote: ZL: >: For clarity's sake, Here's [R/Dr Halbertal's] thesis: ... >: 1. > Retrieval: G-d revealed every single detail about how to perform ... RMB [I'm changing your original order--ZL]: > I will ignore his portrayal of the geonim, because -- as you note --I > am not convinced on that point either. SIMPLISTIC? ZL: >: 2. "Accumulative": G-d did not give complete instructions as to >: how to ... >: 3. Constitutive: G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. ... > RMB: > This is way too oversimplified...The difference > between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and "Constitutive"] > is more whether > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the poseiq's > job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to create new > positions that then "Accumulate", or > 2- Hashem gave both positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of > the poseiq to decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. How do you find my description more simplistic than your own? Whereas you write, "G-d gave neither position at Sinai," I wrote, as you quoted, "G-d did not give complete instructions," and I continued, "Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information." Not only isn't my description simplistic, I think it's more thorough. You write, "and the poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to created new positions that then "Accumulate." I really don't see my description ("Chazal in each generation, by their own reasoning and by utilizing drashos of pesukim, determined the halachic status of things and people, and determined heretofore unknown and unstated details and requirements as to how to perform the mitzvos. Each generation accumulated new information.") as more simplistic than yours. But I still maintain that all the Geonim and rishonim--including those to whom the essay attributes a "Constitutive" view--hold that Hashem encoded in the pesukim the true halachic responses to all situations, that He provided the keys by which to decode them, that He therefore intended a specific response for Chazal to determine, and that Chazal's goal was to retrieve that intent through using those keys and analyzing precedents. The intent may not have been provided explicitly, but the tools by which to accurately determine it were.And where different minds using these tools came to different conclusions, Hashem approved the majority opinion as the means by which to confidently discover His original intent in the overwhelming majority of cases. (What is to be done about the rare event that an opposite result is not obtained, and what our attitude should be towards such an occurrence, is another, although connected, issue.) MORE STARK? > and the difference between Accumulative and Constitutive models is > made more stark than what the essay actualy describes. The > difference between these [second] two models ["Accumative" and > "Constitutive"] is more whether: > 1- ["Accumulative"] G-d gave neither position at Sinai, and the > poseiq's job is to extrapolate and interpolate from what we have to > create new positions that then "Accumulate", or 2- Hashem gave both > positions at Sinai and therefore it is the job of the poseiq to > decide which shitah should be "Constitute" the din. And my opposing description of the essay's proposition of a "Constitutive view was: "G-d did not reveal any details of mitzvah observance. He only provided numerous "panim," legal principle,s some of which would lead to one halachic conclusion in a given situation, and some of which would lead to a different one." I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. ADHERENCE TO LOGIC The rishonim to whom the "Constitutive View" is attributed, and the talmudic sources involved, say only that Hashem refrained from explicating a halachic conclusion (so that they are agreeing, in this aspect, to the allegedly contrary "Accumulative View") Nowhere do they say that "Hashem gave both positions at Sinai." After all, in all other areas, The Ramban and Ran (and even IMO the Ritva) are no less married than the Rambam to the logic of the Gemora, which holds that something cannot both be true and untrue in the same place at the same time (which, you say, Aristo's and Boolean logic agree to). This is the premise of every Gemora's kushya between pesukim and between maamarim. And, as I mentioned and indicated sources for in my first post on this thread, the Ramban and the Ran, even concerning the halachic conclusions that Hashem did not explicitly assign, explicitly express the premise that Hashem did have a conclusion in mind, which Chazal were expected to reach, and which as a rule they did (see above). DIFFERING WITH A PREVIOUS BEIS DIN GADOL At the end of your second response, you wrote: > in a Constitutive system [atttributed to Ritva, Ramban and Ran, vs > Rambam who is said to hold the "Accumulative" system], whatever > shitah he [Osniel ben Kenaz, in retrieving through his pilpul the > forgotten laws supported by the 13 middos shehHaTorah nidreshess > bahen--ZL] justifies would then be the version of divrei E-lokim Chaim > that is the new din. > With a HUGE resulting difference in the power of later authorities > to second-guess those conclusions. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that it is only Rambam's acceptance of an "Accumulative" view, that allowed him to maintain that a Beis Din Gadol could second-guess the drash of a former one, but the Ramban's and Ran's view does not provide that power. But RMH himself wrote, ...it is the court that constitutes this meaning out of the multiplicity of given options. It comes as no surprise, then, that in the Constitutive View generational gaps are in theory not crucial. Indeed, the Ran continues to say:"Permission has been granted to the rabbis of each generation to resolve disputes raised by the Sages as they see fit, even if their predecessors were greater or more numerous. And we have been commanded to accept their decisions, whether they correspond to the truth or to its opposite. So apparently even RMH recognizes that the Constitutive View he attributes to the Ran does not, in contrast to the Accumulative View, entail any difference at all in the power of later authorities to second-guess the conclusions of earlier Batei Din.etin This is getting long, so I'll save my responses to the rest of your comments for other posts. ZL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 17:12:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 20:12:08 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' David Riceman wrote: > On cast iron see > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_iron > and > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware > > Most of the pots in our house are either stainless steel or > enameled cast iron or anodized aluminum, none of which were > available for cooking before the 1900s (maybe late 1800s?), > and all of which have very different properties than clay > or cast iron pots. I understand that cast iron is very different than stainless steel. It is also very different from silver, copper, wood, pottery, and many other materials. My question is: What makes stainless steel so categorically different from these others that people want to say that it does not absorb taam? > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. How is that relevant? Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Tue Sep 27 18:25:50 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2016 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] KeViAs Seudah, MeZonos HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Also, although sleeping is ALWAYS KaVuAh, nevertheless no > Beracha is made even when sleeping the night. and R' Zev Sero responded: > Even if you have not already said a bracha in that sukah?! (sigh...) It seems we go through this every year. Just about anything one might do in a sukkah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah. But Chazal singled out one specific act as being particularly worthy of the bracha Layshev Basukkah. And that act is Seudas Keva. That is why people often say things like, "Don't say Layshev on eating an apple," or "Don't say Layshev on relaxing in the sukkah," or in our case, "Don't say Layshev on sleeping in the sukkah." Unfortunately, these sayings are widely misunderstood. One CAN say Layshev on the mitzvah of living in the sukkah. But eating an apple, or relaxing, or even sleeping in the sukkah, does not intensify that mitzvah to the next level. Eating a Seudas Keva DOES intensify the mitzvah. Therefore, if one enters the sukkah for the mitzvah, and does not plan to eat a Seudas Keva, since he is unquestionably doing Yeshivas Sukkah, he does say Layshev, even though he is "merely" eating an apple, or relaxing, or going to sleep. However, if he enters the sukkah for these purposes, and he plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on - even much later on - then he should save the bracha for that point, when he will be doing the more "intense" (for lack of a better word) form of the mitzvah, and the bracha will cover the prior time as well. This is all spelled out in Mishne Brurah 639:46 and 639:48. The common misunderstanding of these halachos is that we never say Layshev except for a Seudas Keva, and people think that the Mechaber/Rama 639:8 supports that belief. But MB 46 there explains it differently: There is indeed a machlokes, and the lenient view says to say Layshev any time one enters the sukkah (after a hefsek from the previous time). Even if one plans to eat a Seudas Keva later on, the lenient view says to say Layshev immediately on entry. The stricter view (which Mechaber/Rama agree is the actual practice) is to delay the Layshev until later on when he eats his Seudas Keva. But that is only if there will indeed *be* a Seudas Keva later on. If there will *not* be a Seudas Keva later on, then he *does* say Layshev when entering. An excellent example of this is if one spends some time outside the sukkah doing some non-sukkah related stuff, so that that there's a hefsek since his last Layshev. Then he enters the sukkah to go to sleep. He does say Layshev, but it's not on sleeping in the sukkah - it's on *being* in the sukkah. Another frequent example is someone who goes to the sukkah between Mincha and Maariv (whether he is learning or shmoozing is irrelevant); since Mincha is a hefsek and Maariv is a hefsek and he is not eating in between, there's no reason not to say Layshev upon entering the Sukkah. POSTSCRIPT: I was going to change the subject line for this post, to something more Sukkos-related. But I'm not, because I perceive an important connection between this post and some of the general Seudah ideas that we've been discussing lately. For example, let's take a look at the middle of MB 639:46: <<< The minhag of the whole world follows those poskim who hold that we never say Layshev except when eating. Even if they sit in the sukkah for an hour before eating, they don't say Layshev, because they hold that it is all covered by the bracha that they'll say later on, when eating, because that's the ikar and it covers the sleeping and the relaxing and the learning, which are all tafel to it. >>> I'm sure there are many who will pounce on the words "we never say Layshev except when eating", but I think they fail to notice that the MB is presuming a meal later on. This is an important point, very relevant to what we've been saying about how the role of bread has changed in modern society. There used to be a presumption that every meal would have bread as its focus, and THAT'S why people got into the habit of not saying Layshev when they entered the sukkah: "I'll say Layshev later on, with my Hamotzi." Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 03:08:10 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 06:08:10 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: R' Marty Bluke wrote: > The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons > why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: > 1. ... > 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up > He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as > a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very broad sense. I don't know whether (according to them) "food" was the original meaning and then it got narrowed to "bread", or perhaps it was originally "bread" and then got expanded to "food". Either way, the claim was not that this was a slang or colloquial term (like using "dough" for "money"), but more like how "kesef" took on "money" as its main meaning, leaving "silver" almost secondary. I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 06:15:22 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Eli Turkel via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:15:22 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] workers right Message-ID: The Chofetz Chaim wrote many different seforim. I once heard that he said that if can only buy one of his seforim it should be "ahavas chesed" . Neverthless this sefer seems to be "ignored" by many. While of course the MB is popular there are groups to learn shmirat halashon. Are there any groups to study ahavas chesed? -- Eli Turkel -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 09:14:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 09:14:03 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] yerusha Message-ID: http://www.kikar.co.il/210997.html does going in anyway off the derech afffect yerusha if the deceased didn't cut that child off ie can an apotropos decide on his own? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:44:14 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:44:14 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: <1cb766.392219ff.451df61e@aol.com> In a message dated 9/23/2016: From: Isaac Balbin >>Indeed, it is ironic that when the Gezera was first made it was not accepted because of the importance of bread to their diet. The irony is that they tell you to stay away from carbs like bread if you want to lose weight. I guess though that supports the notion. Granted meat was in short supply and expensive at times, but potatoes and the like would have been there.<< >>> Potatoes would have been /where/? Potatoes are a New World food and would not have been anywhere in the Old World prior to the 16th century. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Wed Sep 28 21:59:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:59:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah Message-ID: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> > R' Eli Turkel asked >> > I note in my shul that it is becoming more common to see light blue or even >> > striped shirts on shabbat. Again how much of this dress wear is time >> > dependent?" >>>> What a strange disconnect we sometimes find between the subject line and the actual subject. "Whole wheat challah"? "Blue shirts on Shabbos?" A strange thread, speaking of blue threads. Mah inyan shmittah etc? I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com .. ============= ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 05:02:27 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:02:27 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem Message-ID: <115c9a8b2f054e0f91deca91da49ee29@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> Is anyone aware of any lomdus or academic research on whey the concept of hakatuv hashlishi yachria beinehem is found in midrash halacha (e.g., Yalkut shimoni) but not (to my knowledge) in the Talmud Bavli? KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:08:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (H Lampel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 10:08:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Geonim, Rambam and Other Rishonim on Mesorah and, Pesak and RMH's essay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I retract this paragraph. Zvi Lampel > I actually think your version creates a starker contrast between the > Accumulative and Constitutional views than mine does. You have the > "Accumulative" view asserting that Hashem explicitly stated neither > halachic position vs. the "Constitutive"view that Hashem actually gave > both contradictory halachic rulings. (I'm assuming you are using the > word "position" here to refer to the pesak, just as you did in your > description of the "Accumulative" view.) I have Hashem giving incomplete > halachic positions vs Hashem providing the halachic factors to consider > in reaching a decision. I think I'm being fairer and kinder to the > author by not extending the idea of Hashem giving multiple "panim" > (considerations to look for in situations they would face, by which > to size it up, and arrive at the correct pesak based upon the correct > weighing of those factors) to the less subtle, more radical idea that > He actually told Moshe contradicting conclusions (between which Chazal > would decide based upon...what??, being that there is no criterion to > meet?). RMH put it that the Ramban, Ran, and Ritva held that Hashem > left the issues "open-ended," by revealing to him the arguments of the > future sages, which Moshe proceeded to transmit to the sages for them > to decide the pesak. He did not actually write that the Ramban or Ran, > or even Ritva, held that Hashem actually gave contradicting pesakim. From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 07:04:05 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:04:05 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana Message-ID: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> The following is from today's Daf HaYomi B'Halacha http://www.dafhalacha.com/daily-emails-2/ The Rama cites a custom not to sleep during the day of Rosh Hashana. This is based on a statement of Chazal that if someone sleeps on Rosh Hashana, his mazal will sleep. According to the Arizal, the problem is limited to the morning hours before chatzos. There is a machlokes as to whether this custom mandates arising before dawn on Rosh Hashana morning. Some contemporary poskim write that even if the minhag does not require people to rise early, someone who woke up early should not go back to sleep. Someone whose head feels heavy or who won't be able to daven properly without a nap can rest as needed on Rosh Hashana. Some poskim say that the minhag differentiates between sleeping in a bed and in a chair -- and only resting in a bed could be a problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 10:03:03 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Professor L. Levine via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:03:03 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma Message-ID: <1475168576960.90845@stevens.edu> As we sit down on Rosh Hashana night, to partake of our Simanim, as symbolic omens to enable a "Sweet New Year", we might want to give a thought or two to the fact that one of the most widespread of the Simanim, fish, which can be used for two separate Simanim, is cited by many authorities as an item not to be eaten on Rosh Hashana... To find out why and if it still applies, read the full article "Insights Into Halacha: The Rosh Hashana 'Dug' Dilemma" >From this article There is a well-known halacha that one is not allowed to fast on Rosh Hashana barring certain specific circumstances. Although it is a Day of Judgment, and there are shittos of the Gaonim that do permit one to fast, nevertheless the halacha is that Rosh Hashana is also a festive Yom Tov and we must honor it properly. In fact, the Yerushalmi mentions that we must eat, drink, and be mesamayach on Rosh Hashana[1]. This includes partaking of fine delicacies, as it is written in the Book of Nechemia[2] regarding Rosh Hashana, that everyone should "Eat fatty foods and drink sweet drinks...for this day is holy". Interestingly, and although it is considered to be of the most distinguished of foods, and therefore seemingly quite appropriate with which to honor the holiday, nevertheless, there are various customs related to the permissibility of partaking of fish on Rosh Hashana[3]. Many readers are probably puzzled by the last paragraph, and might exclaim after rereading it: "What? How is that possible? Everyone eats fish on Rosh Hashana. In fact it is even one of the Simanim! How can something meant to properly usher in the New Year possibly be prohibited?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 12:53:08 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rich, Joel via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:53:08 +0000 Subject: [Avodah] Sleeping on Rosh Hashana In-Reply-To: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> References: <1475157838982.13412@stevens.edu> Message-ID: <37bba9bb38fe4fe2bac819cb172f9a55@VW2K8NYCEXMBX4.segal.segalco.com> From an upcoming Audio roundup: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/863298/rabbi-baruch-simon/rosh-hashanah-can-i-sleepnap-on-rosh-hashanah/ Rabbi Baruch Simon -Rosh Hashanah: Can I sleep/nap on Rosh Hashanah Yerushalmi (that we don't have) is the source of the custom of not sleeping on Rosh Hashana. There are many differing opinions on the issue (e.g., ignore, only pm). There is also a custom to rise at the beginning of the day (TBD). Best advice (per Avi Mori Vrabbi Z11"hh) -keep your eye on the bouncing ball (the ultimate prize). KVCT Joel Rich THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE ADDRESSEE. IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 21:52:12 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:12 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi Message-ID: Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of HaMotzi. Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is Taffel to very salty foods, the very salty food itself being Taffel to the very sweet fruits [Peiros Genoisor- the Beracha HaEitz Patters the salty foods and the bread which one eats after the overwhelmingly sweet aftertaste causes one to eat the salty after which the bread comes to neutralise the salty taste - The Gemara in a beautiful measure of hyperbole describes the glowing countenance of those who were eating Peiros Genoisor as being so intense that any flies that attempt to land on their forehead will just slide off] Taffel has many applications for example wearing clothes during Shabbos from a Reshus HaRabbim to a Reshus HaYachid, is permitted because they are Taffel to the body. In that situation we see how extensive Taffel actually is - it includes the feather in ones hat band. How would that translate into what parts of the meal are Taffel to the bread even if the bread is only the notional Ikkar of the meal. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 22:44:07 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Marty Bluke via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:44:07 +0300 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:52 AM, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote: > Making the Beracha Mezonos in error over any food does Patter since > Mezonos has also a broader meaning of food. I do not think that is true of > HaMotzi. > > Bread Patters the other foods of the meal because they are Tafel to it the > way herring is Taffel to Kichel, peanut butter to a cracker, and bread is > Taffel to very salty foods > ... The Aruch Hashulchan explicitly disagrees with you. He writes that bread/hamotzi has 2 dinim, the first that things are tafel to the bread but the second is that hamotzi paturs other things even if they are not tafel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 18:32:00 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:32:00 +1000 Subject: [Avodah] Birchas Leishev - Kevius, Eating Message-ID: many thanks to R Akiva for the clarification and sources re LeiShev BaSukkah. If I may review - One MUST make the Beracha of LeiShev for the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah which includes eating drinking sleeping and lounging. We pin that Beracha however to the significant act of eating a meal if and only if there will be a meal during that sitting. The MB quoting the ChAdam speaks of one who is fasting, who must make therefore a Beracha upon entering the Sukkah. Similarly, if one is not fasting but after having eaten a meal, leaves the Sukkah in such a manner that he is MaSiAch DaAs, and returns to the Sukkah without intending to eat during that sitting but will again leave - he too must make the Beracha for that non-eating sitting. Best, Meir G. Rabi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:40:48 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:40:48 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930104047.GA30509@aishdas.org> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 08:12:08PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote: :> And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. : How is that relevant? Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger I always give much away, micha at aishdas.org and so gather happiness instead of pleasure. http://www.aishdas.org - Rachel Levin Varnhagen Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:10:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:10:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] whole wheat challah In-Reply-To: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> References: <1cba33.498f9753.451df99e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20160930101018.GA14638@aishdas.org> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 12:59:11AM -0400, via Avodah wrote: : I understand that wearing blue shirts on Shabbos is a sign of kalus rosh : and impiety, but whole wheat challah?! Do different varieties of bread : signify different points on the frum spectrum? she asked with a rye smile. Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against using dark, coarse, bread. I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF (in the teshvah under discussion, but phrased in my own terms) holds that this challah recipe norm had risen to the level of minhag, and shouldn't be changed. I do not know if RMF would say the same to someone who prefers whole wheat bread for taste reasons rather than health benefits. As his objection was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to use aesthetically inferior bread. (And not too many people who accept the benefits of avoiding white bread would say there is a serious problem with making an exception for three hamotzis a weak, plus chagim.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger The thought of happiness that comes from outside micha at aishdas.org the person, brings him sadness. But realizing http://www.aishdas.org the value of one's will and the freedom brought Fax: (270) 514-1507 by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 03:27:55 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Micha Berger via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 06:27:55 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Mezonos Becomes HaMotzi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20160930102755.GB14638@aishdas.org> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 06:08:10AM -0400, R Akiva Miller replied to R Marty Bluke: :> The Aruch Hashulchan writes that there are 2 distinct reasons :> why hamotzi exempts other foods from a beracha: :> 1. The food is tafel to the bread :> 2. Hamotzi paturs any food that is coming to fill you up :> He doesn't explain why this should be so he just states it as :> a fact, can someone explain the sevara behind this? : I have heard some claim that the word "lechem" can mean "food" in a very : broad sense... : I don't know how true any of the above is, but if it *is* accurate, then I : think it would explain this Aruch Hashulchan, because all food is "lechem", : even if there's no bread around for the other food to be tafel to. But haMotzi lekhem min ha'aretz still would only cover food made from gedulei qarqa, no? I believe the other RMB is paraphrasing AhS 177:1 . That is where my bewilderment started. He says that it covers 1- Food that is is normal to be qoveia se'udah on, lelafeis bahem es haps; and 2- ve'afilu okhlim belo pas, because of iqar and tafeil. I guess you could recast my question to asking what the maqor is for #2. Apparently the MB and AhS (*) wondered about the sevara as well, and offered their opinions. The AhS says it's implied from Tosafos (Berakhos 41a, "hilkhita"), who do note that Rashi speaks of lelafeis in terms of iqar and tafeil -- aand then asks questions about it to end up concluding that what the gemara is including beyond lelafeis and normal iqar and tafeil is to extend tefeilus beyond lelafeis. As the AhS says: vedo"q. (* In chronological order. While RYME started writing AhS first, he started with CM. The MB was written before AhS OC, and is in fact cited in it.) :-)BBii! -Micha -- Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair: micha at aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while, http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere. Fax: (270) 514-1507 From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:15:02 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (saul newman via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 08:15:02 -0700 Subject: [Avodah] the bologna sefer torah Message-ID: https://www.academia.edu/26456007/The_Rediscovery_of_the_most_ancient_entire_Sefer_Torah_at_the_Bologna_University_Library_12_th_century_A_Rare_Witness_of_the_Masoretic_Babylonian_Graphic_and_Textual_Tradition -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 08:04:11 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Prof. Levine via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:04:11 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21.1B.32739.C0F7EE75@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> At 06:45 AM 9/30/2016, R. Micha wrote: > Historically, dark bread was considered inferior. Thus, unlike fashions > in clothing or table-cloth colors, there are actual pesaqim against > using dark, coarse, bread. > I don't think anyone holds they still apply mei'iqar hadin, now that many > consider whole wheat bread superior to white. But RMF['s]... objection > was that the difference in health benefit was insufficient reason to > use aesthetically inferior bread. One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. YL From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 10:04:18 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Toby Katz via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Whole Wheat Challah Message-ID: <2bdd96.8194142.451ff512@aol.com> In a message dated 9/30/2016 11:04am EDT larry62341 at optonline.net writes: > One can buy white whole wheat flour and bake challah or bread with it and > one cannot tell that it is whole wheat. White whole wheat flour? That goes against the grain. --Toby Katz t613k at aol.com From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Fri Sep 30 14:04:23 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Akiva Miller via Avodah) Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:04:23 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots Message-ID: R' Micha Berger wrote: > And the routine use of soap to clean pots is also new. I asked: > How is that relevant? and now R' Micha responds: > Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah. > And besides, one can make nosein ta'am lifgam arguments. > I think the smoothness of rolled metal is a bigger issue than which > metal we're using (cast iron vs stainless). And soap. If we were talking about a b'dieved situation, where one already used a keli for the other gender, then I would understand how these factors are relevant, because the less mamashus is present, then the greater the chance that we have shishim against it. But I thought this conversation is about l'chatchilah, that Rav Melamed and others feel that stainless steel should be interchangeable, the way some act with glass. If so, then I repeat that I do not see how smoothness and soap are relevant. I perceive a logic problem in the line "Less remains in cracks. Thus, less beli'ah." The word "less" usually means "smaller but non-zero", in other words, there IS some mamashus present. But the word "beli'ah" refers specifically to ta'am, and if any mamashus is present, then hagala is not effective. And a mere washing would certainly be ineffective. In other words: If you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because its nature is such that it doesn't absorb ta'am, then I will wonder how you made that determination, but at least there's nothing contradictory or otherwise illogical about the claim. But if you tell me that a certain material doesn't need to be kashered because it is smooth and can be cleaned easily, then you just aren't making sense: Cleaning the mamashus from a keli does nothing to remove the beli'ah from it, and being smooth simply means that it is easy to clean. CONFESSION and REQUEST: I freely admit that I've never learned these halachos deeply as they should be learned. This entire post is based on this balabos's weak understanding. If you can correct any of the claims I made above, please enlighten me. Akiva Miller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avodah at lists.aishdas.org Thu Sep 29 06:30:56 2016 From: avodah at lists.aishdas.org (Cantor Wolberg via Avodah) Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 09:30:56 -0400 Subject: [Avodah] Tzom Kal Message-ID: <828D5629-EB3C-40A5-94DB-EF79E1470629@cox.net> An elderly Jewish man, Sam Cohen, 87 years of age, was told by his physician that it would be dangerous for him to fast on Yom Kippur. He informed his wife that he didn?t care what his doctor said and that he never missed a fast since his bar-mitzvah and he was going to start now. His distraught wife called their rabbi who came to visit Sam. He told Sam that Jewish Law mandates he not fast on Yom Kippur. Stubborn Sam told the rabbi that he always fasted and he wasn?t going to stop this year. The rabbi?s response is one that could never be forgotten. He said, ?Sam, you?re an idolater,? to which Sam angrily replied,?What do you mean, rabbi?! I?m willing to sacrifice my life for Yom Kippur!? ?Exactly,? said the rabbi. You?re worshipping Yom Kippur, not the Almighty, Who has commanded you not fast if there is a danger to your health.?